Sweet Caroline
by imdrowninginfootwear
Summary: Klaus is upset and drunk and somehow ends up standing underneath the window where Caroline is sitting. And what happens when a trio of hunters shows up in town looking for revenge? Set right after 4x19. Klaroline.
1. Chapter 1

Klaus was sitting alone at home, drinking away his misery.

He was pissed that his brother had wanted to give the cure to Rebekah instead of letting him use it to kill the bastard that way trying to kill him. He was pissed because he had let Tyler Lockwood see Caroline on prom night and then not chased after him to kill him. He was pissed because Katherine was still alive and weaseling her way back into Elijah's life. He was pissed because no matter how hard he tried or what he did, Caroline always chose Tyler even when he was chased out of town and ignoring her. He was pissed because he had somehow gotten himself into the friend zone with her after all of his flirting. And he was pissed that he was going soft and no longer thought of as a force to reckon with.

* * *

He was already pretty wasted when he had finished all of the liquor in his entire house. But all of that was not enough to wash away the pain, so he left the house to go walk to the Mystic Grill.

He could barely walk in a single predetermined direction, despite his increased balance from being a vampire and a hybrid.

* * *

It took him much longer to find the Mystic Grill than it should have, but finally he did find it and stumbled his way through the doors.

He headed over towards the bar, ignoring the looks that he was getting from the other people at the restaurant and the disapproving whispers as he headed straight for the nearest bar stool.

He sat down in it and then turned to the bartender and said, "Give me your strongest drink."

"Um, I don't exactly think that's the best idea," The bartender began to respond. "You look like you've already had more than enough to drink."

Klaus stood up and grabbed him by the collar of the shirt, his eyes dilating to compel the bartender as he growled out, "Did you hear me stutter?!"'

"N-no," The bartender responded in a frightened tone. "I uh- I'm sorry.. Here, take the whole bottle."

"Much better," Klaus said before grabbing the full bottle off of the bar and turning to leave without paying.

* * *

Once he was back outside, he opened the bottle and began to chug from it as he headed down the street, stumbling over his own feet every few steps as he weaved in and out of the road.

* * *

He finally ended up at Caroline's house, not quite sure of when he had decided to go there.

Klaus headed up the steps and then knocked hard on the front door.

A few seconds later, Liz Forbes opened the door and looked at him, clearly unimpressed.

"Is Caroline home?" He slurred out.

"No," Liz told him in her most intimidating tone.

"Are you sure?" Klaus asked.

He moved to lean against the frame of the door, causing himself to almost fall over.

"Caroline!" Klaus wailed out, causing a dog from a few doors down to bark loudly at him.

He waited for a few seconds and when no angry response came, he decided that Liz was probably telling the truth.

"There, are you happy now?" Liz asked him as she moved to close the door. "You should really go home, it's late and you're drunk."

Klaus scowled at the closed door in front of his face.

"No shit I'm drunk," He slurred at it before turning to storm off in search of Caroline.

"If I was Caroline Forbes and it was nighttime, where would I be?" Klaus muttered to himself as he stumbled on. "..Not in Klaus's bed clearly…"

She wasn't at home, she hadn't been at the Mystic Grill, and Tyler had run away with his tail between his legs once again, so Klaus figured that she was probably at one of her friends' houses.

He began to head towards Elena's house after vaguely remembering a conversation that he had overheard about her, Caroline and Bonnie making plans for an upcoming sleepover. Klaus figured that it was as good of a bet as any that she was over at Elena's for the sleepover that night.

* * *

When Klaus arrived on the Gilbert lawn, he instantly spotted three shadows moving behind the curtain upstairs in Elena's room. The silhouettes were all female.

"Jackpot," Klaus whispered to himself before drinking the final sip out of his drink and then dropping the bottle on the grass.

Klaus looked up at the window, trying to figure out what he was going to do. The whole time he had been too busy trying to find Caroline for an irrational reason without really thinking about what he would do when he found her.

Suddenly the song Sweet Caroline popped into his head and he was already standing under the window, so he figured why not.

"Where it began! I can't begin to knowing, but then I know it's growing strong," Klaus began to drunkenly sing to the window extremely loudly.

He saw the silhouettes freeze in the window and took that as a good sign and began to sing even louder. "Was in the spring, and spring became the summer. Who'd have believed you'd come along!"

The curtain pulled back and Klaus saw the three girls staring down at him in confusion.

"Hands, touching hands-" Klaus continued loudly.

Caroline opened the window and looked down at him angrily.

"Reaching out," Klaus continued.

"Klaus, what the hell are you doing?" Caroline shouted down angrily.

"Touching me, touching you," Klaus continued with a drunken grin.

"No, stop!" Caroline screamed at him, clearly not as amused as he was.

"Sweet Caroline!" Klaus continued to sing in his inebriated state. "Good times never seemed so good!"

"I swear to god I am going to kill you!" Caroline threatened him.

"I've been inclined," Klaus continued to sing, completely ignoring her anger. "To believe they never would!"

Bonnie began to snicker a little and Caroline turned to shoot her a death glare.

"But now, I look at the night!" Klaus continued, even louder now since he had taken the laughter as encouragement. "And it don't seem so lonely, we fill it up with only two!"

Elena began to laugh along with Bonnie.

"It isn't funny," Caroline said seriously, before she herself broke out into laughter. "Okay, yeah maybe it's a little funny watching a drunk original singing in your yard. But people are going to get mad. You do realize that, right?"

"And when I hurt!" Klaus continued obnoxiously. "Hurting runs off my shoulders. How can I hurt when holding you?"

"If you want him to stop, then maybe you should go do something to stop him," Elena responded with a grin. "Because it doesn't look like he's going to stop anytime soon and I mean, _I_ certainly don't have any control over him."

"Warm, touching warm," Klaus sang. "Reaching out… Touching me, touching you."

"Like what?" Caroline asked. "I already told him to stop several times and it's not like I'm going to go swoon because he's drunk singing. And why would I reward him for his obnoxious drunk singing?"

"Sweet Caroline!" Klaus warbled to her. "Good times never seemed so good."

"Maybe because your favourite movie involves a guy serenading a girl outside her window," Bonnie pointed out with a smirk. "I mean technically it isn't _your_ window, but it's pretty damn close."

Caroline rolled her eyes at her friends.

"I've been inclined! To believe they never would!" Klaus shouted. "Oh. No, no."

"Please stop!" Caroline begged him.

Klaus smiled up at her.

"Sweet Caroline!" He continued. "Good times never seemed so good."

Caroline groaned.

"Sweet Caroline!" Klaus sang anyways. "I believe they never could. Sweet Caroline… Good times never seemed so good…. Sweet Caroline..."

"At least the song's over now," Elena told her.

"I'm actually impressed that he's so drunk that he can barely stand and yet he still remembered all of the words," Bonnie commented.

Klaus looked up at the window expectantly.

"What are you doing here?" Caroline asked him.

"I went to your house, but you weren't home!" Klaus called up to her, his words still slurred just as his singing had been.

"So you decided to come stand here and sing in Elena's yard?" Caroline asked him, clearly not following his train of thought.

"Not really," He told her. "I was drunk and sad and looking for you. And then I found you here and I just kind of started to sing... And then you yelled at me."

"Yeah, I remember that part," Caroline responded, not sounding very sorry for him. "I was here for it, remember?"

Klaus stared up at her, looking incredibly pathetic as he did so.

Caroline sighed dramatically before finally turning from the window and heading for Elena's bedroom door.

Bonnie and Caroline followed closely behind her, not wanting to miss any of what would happen.

* * *

Caroline reached the front door and walked out onto the edge of the front porch so that he hopefully would stop screaming like an idiot.

"So why are you drunk and sad?" Caroline asked him, her tone was slightly gentler although she still sounded impatient.

"Cuz," Klaus responded defensively.

"That's helpful," Caroline said sarcastically. "You came to find me because you're sad and wasted and you can't even tell me why?" She raised her hands up dramatically. "I'm done."

She turned around to go head back into the house where Bonnie and Caroline were curiously watching from the doorway.

"Caroline wait," Klaus slurred after her.

She turned around and crossed her arms expectantly.

Klaus jogged over to where she stood, tripping on his feet and practically face-planting about three times on his way.

He stopped in front of her and looked into her eyes with his sad ones.

"Well then what?" Caroline asked in an irritated tone, although the sadness in her eyes did strike her. "Because I'm not just going to stand out here all night because you don't want to be sad and alone if you aren't even going to talk to m-"

She was cut off by Klaus forcing his lips against hers.

Caroline pushed him off of her quickly and then looked at him angrily.

"What the hell are you doing?" She asked him. "Did you think that I was just going to pity sleep with you? I'm not the drunk one here."

"I just-" Klaus began to say, but he was too drunk to even form a full sentence, so instead he just looked at her with tears in his eyes.

"No! You aren't going to get out of this with your stupid puppy eyes," Caroline told him aggressively. "You know what; I've gotten over a hell of a lot of shit that you've done just to be friends with you. You can't just show up here and obnoxiously drunkenly sing and then kiss me and expect me to kiss you back. And you sure as hell _cannot_ look at me like that afterwards to try and make me feel bad about it!"

Klaus stared at her for a tiny bit longer as he exhaled angrily before turning and walking off. He would have run off at vampire speed, but he was far too drunk to successfully run at that speed. It was very likely that he would end up running face first straight into a tree.

* * *

Once he was gone, Caroline re-entered Elena's house. As much as she would refuse to ever admit it out loud to anyone else, Klaus had been quite successful at making her more than guilty with those eyes. Even if she knew that it was completely illogical for her to feel guilty for rejecting him after his stupid actions, she still felt that way.

* * *

Klaus walked down the streets as fast as he physically could while completely inebriated.

Finally he found his way back home and went inside, really wishing that there was still more alcohol left there. But there wasn't since he had already drunk it all before he had left.

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! This is an idea that I've had for a long time and that I've had a chapter and a half written of for while, so I decided to put it up. I really hope that you enjoyed the first chapter and I would love to hear your opinions :D**


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, or really afternoon, when Klaus woke up he was surprised to remember basically everything from the night before. Unfortunately for him, that included how much of an ass he had been with Caroline.

He tried to decide whether avoiding her for days or going to find her right then would be a better decision. He figured that she was going to be mad either way and that it would be better to do damage control early instead of letting her sit in her anger for days. He knew that if he waited, then it would be even worse when he would inevitably see her later on.

Klaus sighed and decided to head for Elena's house since that was where he had last seen her and the people there had seemed more impressed with his intoxicated state than Liz Forbes had been… All of the people there except for Caroline, of course.

* * *

Klaus knocked on the door of the Gilbert house, much quieter than he had banged on the door of Caroline's house the night before, and then silently waited.

It was Elena who came down and answered the door.

"What, no song this time?" She asked in an amused tone.

"I'm nowhere near drunk enough right now," Klaus told her.

"Yeah, clearly you had drunk a lot before you made that decision," Elena commented. "So let me guess, you're looking for Caroline?"

Klaus didn't overly appreciate how amused she was at the idea, but he decided to go for the more friendly approach rather than just threatening her, since that usually went over better with Caroline.

"Yeah, is she still here?" Klaus asked.

Elena turned around and began to call up the stairs, "Caroline, Klaus is here! Don't worry; apparently he isn't going to sing this time."

Elena nodded to him and then headed towards her kitchen as footsteps were heard coming down the upstairs hallway and towards the stairs.

* * *

Caroline headed down the stairs and then stopped right in front of him with crossed arms.

"Why are you here again?" She asked, clearly still irritated from the night before.

"I came to talk to you about what happened last night," He told her.

"Fine," Caroline said, heading out the front door to stand outside with him. "Make it good."

"I'm sorry that I showed up like that," He told her seriously. "And believe me I never would have done any of that if I was sober. Or even if I had been slightly less drunk."

"So what's your point?" Caroline asked, not really enjoying listening to a speech about not how he shouldn't have done that, but about what had made him brave enough to do it.

"Yeah I made an ass out of myself, but I'm not so sure that I really regret it," Klaus told her.

"Wow, you're great at apologizing," Caroline said sarcastically. "And accepting responsibility, too."

"I should have told you why I showed up," Klaus admitted. "And I wanted to talk to you about stuff, but then Bonnie and Elena were right there. And you were all angry and hot. Maybe it wasn't the best situation to try and kiss you during, but I'm not going to regret kissing you or apologize for it. I'm sorry for how I showed up and not talking to you, but that's it."

Caroline looked at him, temporarily dumbfounded. Caroline wanted to be mad at him, but she couldn't quite make herself be.

So instead, she decided to ask him, "So if you should have told me what you were upset about, then what was it?"

"A combination of a lot of things," Klaus told her honestly. "Elijah had the cure, but he just handed it over to Silas by accident. And he was going to give it to Rebekah so that she could be human instead of letting me use it against the guy who wants to kill me. And because I get all of the hate that a villain gets with none of the fear and respect anymore. And... And because of you."

"Because of _me_?" Caroline asked skeptically. "What did _I_ do?"

"No matter what I do, I'm never good enough," Klaus pointed out. "I've been trying my damndest and finally all that I've gotten is to be friend zoned. Meanwhile Tyler isn't even here anymore and you're still obsessed with him. And I should have killed him after I caught him in town on prom night, but I just let him go. And he doesn't deserve you Caroline, can't you see that?"

Caroline had never heard that Klaus had run into Tyler on prom night before then. She was slightly shocked, but didn't let that distract her from the rest of what he had said.

"Whose fault is it that he isn't here?" Caroline asked irritatedly. "You're the one who ran him out of town. It's not like it was his decision. And who are you to say that he doesn't deserve me? Do you seriously think that you deserve me more than he does?"

"So what if I did run him out of town?" Klaus asked. "He tried to kill me how many times? He should be glad that I just ran him out of town and that I left him alive."

"This is why people don't like you!" Caroline told him angrily. "You're a total jerk and then act like the other people are the problem. Do you honestly think that I'm going to think that you're the good guy here just because he tried to kill you after you've done a bunch of terrible things?"

"I stopped!" Klaus growled. "I stopped and I was on the same side as all of you. I helped you all out and he still wanted to kill me just to try to keep me away from you because he was afraid to lose! How much of this do you think is really about you, and how much do you think is just getting back at me for the sire bond?"

"I can't believe that you seriously just said that!" Caroline said angrily.

"How many times has he called since he left?" Klaus asked her. "How many times have you spoken to him since he left?"

"He couldn't call, he was on the run from you," Caroline defended.

"Yeah, he _was_," Klaus told her. "I caught up to him pretty fast, though. I told him that I'd let him live as long as I didn't see his face in Mystic Falls, that he could go wherever else he wanted. What part of that means that he can't so much as answer the phone?"

"What?" Caroline asked, her voice turning weaker as she took a step back to sit down on the front steps. "…How long ago did you say that?"

"Three days after he left," Klaus responded. "He's been pointlessly avoiding you for weeks."

"How do I know that you aren't lying?" Caroline asked him.

"You don't," Klaus responded honestly. "You can believe whatever you want to. But if you find out later that I was telling the truth, then you can't say that I didn't warn you."

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! Thanks for reading and for all of the support on the first chapter! Sorry that I took so long to update, I've had a lot going on and I have two other stories that I'm updating right now. The next chapter should be up way sooner and I really hope that you're liking the story so far! :)**

**An extra special thanks goes out to all of the lovely reviewers of the first chapter: melyna1864, DrawingMyHeartOut, cupcakesweetheart5, nicole317, Pinkgem22, Klaroline66, justine, secile, jessnicole, karened, KlarolineSince97, April420, Paddge, and the two anonymous guest reviewers! :D**

* * *

**REVIEW ANSWERS:**

**Guest: I'm sorry, but I really don't think that Klaus was "so OOC." that "It was so cringe worthy." In the show this is kind of how Klaus behaves. I mean, he gets upset over something and he completely loses control of himself. And as for the "I am sorry but he'd never be that drunk and go sing to get Caroline's attention.", do you really think that in all of his years and with all of the crap that he went through that he wouldn't ever get that drunk? I mean he used to get drunk with Stefan all the time. And I'm sorry if you don't think that he would ever get drunk enough to end up singing, but people do stupid things when they're drunk and Klaus would do pretty much anything to get Caroline's attention if he thought that it would work. But thanks for the review.**

**DrawingMyHeartOut: I was really surprised that nobody else has wrote him serenading her with this song and I'm glad that you liked the idea :)**

**nicole317: Nope, sorry. She didn't go after him... Caroline's just a little too stubborn for that, even if she did feel bad about it.**

**secile: She's kind of got her mean front as a defense against admitting her feelings whatsoever.**

**karened: Yeah, it's supposed to be funny even if there is other serious stuff going on other than the humour. I don't know, that's just how I write my stories even when there's sad stuff going on... I'm really glad that you liked it. :)**

**Guest: Aww, thanks. And I liked that line too. I actually laughed quite a fair bit when I wrote that one because I think that I'm hilarious and laugh at my own jokes all the time :P**

**Paddge: There sure will be more chapters. I'm not sure of how many yet.**


	3. Chapter 3

As much as she didn't want to, Caroline believed that Klaus was telling her the truth.

She didn't think that he would ever lie to her about something like that or that he would ever make up something that he knew would hurt her just to try to try to get her away from Tyler.

She went quiet for one long minute before the rage and betrayal that she felt took over.

Caroline pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and quickly dialled Tyler's number.

"Why am I not surprised that I got your voicemail?" Caroline asked into the phone. "That's right, because that's all I ever get from you. And I know that it's because you're on the run from Klaus and you can't answer, right? Well he told me about your little run in three days after you left. I know that you could have been talking to me this whole time, but instead you've been ignoring my calls for no reason, so don't even try to deny it."

Caroline hung up and didn't even get the chance to put her phone away before it began to ring in her hand.

"Oh, sure," Caroline said as she answered the call. "Now you can call me."

"You can't seriously believe him Care," Tyler told her. "You know that the guy would do anything to mess with me and help get you."

"Yeah, well at least he doesn't lie to me like you do," Caroline responded. "I can tell that he's telling me the truth."

"You seriously trust him? He kicked me out of town and you've just been sitting there making friends with him while I've been gone?" Tyler asked.

"This isn't about him," Caroline said angrily. "This has nothing to do with Klaus. This is about you and why you've been ignoring my calls and voicemails."

"This is completely about him," Tyler responded. "This is his fault that I'm here instead of standing there next to you. And he's the one that just told you this out of the goodness of his heart with no intention of messing with me or getting you."

"Oh my god," Caroline said through a dry laugh. "I didn't want to believe it, but he was right. This isn't even about me anymore… And I'm not so sure that it ever was. This whole thing is just a pissing contest with Klaus because of the sire bond."

"How can you even say that?" Tyler asked. "How much has he been brainwashing you since I left?"

"Just shut up about Klaus for two seconds!" Caroline told him. "Could you just stop switching the subject to him and answer my question?"

"Okay, fine," Tyler said. "Maybe I knew that I could talk to you and I didn't. But what's even the point when I'm stuck this far away from you constantly? It's not like I have anything to contribute to any of it."

"I told you that Jeremy Gilbert died and you couldn't even bother to call me back," Caroline hissed into the phone. "What, you didn't have a single thing to say about that? It didn't matter how it happened or anything?"

"It's not like any conversation that we could have possibly had was going to bring him back or change anything," Tyler pointed out.

"I can't do this," Caroline told him. "I honestly just can't even deal with this anymore. If that's honestly what you think, then don't even worry about coming back to town because I don't want to see you. We're done."

"Caroli-" Tyler attempted to argue.

"No." Caroline said sternly. "This isn't up for debate. And don't try to blame it on Klaus or say that I'm breaking up with you for him. I'm breaking up with you because you're an ass."

With that she hung up on him and then looked up to see Klaus looking at her with a somewhat shocked and impressed facial expression.

"I meant that about not breaking up with him for you," She told him.

"I know," Klaus responded. "I wouldn't expect any less."

"Good," Caroline said. "Because believe it or not I can be single. I don't need anybody else to help look after me or protect me."

"I know, Love," Klaus said in an amused tone.

Caroline seemed to calm down a little. Or at the very least, she managed to calm down enough to not continue warning him about things that he was already agreeing with.

Klaus looked at her in silence for a few seconds before he took a step forward and pressed his lips against hers.

Caroline wanted to pull away, but before her mind even got the chance to resist, the kiss deepened.

The kiss wasn't anything like the one the night before had been.

The kiss from the night before had been rushed and urgent. It had been the sloppy kiss of a drunk and his mouth had tasted ridiculously strongly of alcohol. The whole kiss from the night before had been a little too forceful even if it had been short.

The current kiss on the other hand was more than a thousand times better. His mouth no longer tasted of alcohol and each movement was much more deliberate and well-paced. It was just the right amount of gentleness; it wasn't too aggressive, but there was also still clear passion in it.

It was the best kiss that Caroline had had in a very long time; probably the best kiss that she had ever had. And as much as Caroline wanted to pull away from it, she couldn't quite make herself do it. She knew that she was in trouble and that there was a very good chance that Bonnie and Elena were watching, but she couldn't quite convince herself to stop anyways.

When Klaus finally pulled away, Caroline wanted to be mad at him, but couldn't quite find a good reason to be.

"But you just said…" Caroline managed to get out although she was still flustered from the kiss.

"You said that you weren't breaking up with Tyler for me and that you could be single without having anybody looking out for or protecting you and I said that I knew," Klaus agreed. "But I just thought that you should know what it's like to have a real kiss from me for future reference... So that you can remember it when one day you don't want to be alone."

Caroline opened her mouth to say something, although she had no idea what it was.

Before she even had the chance to find out, Klaus had already turned and began to head down Elena's driveway.

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! Thanks for reading and I hope that you guys enjoyed the update.**

**A great big giant extra thanks goes out to all of the amazing reviewers of the last chapter: jessnicole, arielmermaid, DrawingMyHeartOut, hibutterflyskies, Lexi Mikaelson, Vamptragic, justine, SweetyK, April420, LoTS-Fanatic, Little miss salv, and the anonymous guest reviewer! :D**

* * *

**REVIEW ANSWERS:**

**DrawingMyHeartOut: I'm glad to have brightened your life and I'm also very glad that I'm not the only one who embarrasses themselves by laughing about things like this at the most inconvenient times. (I even sometimes do that when I'm thinking of new ideas for my stories and it's really awkward when the people around me have no idea why I've been zoned out for five minutes and then randomly started laughing :P)**

**hibutterflyskies: I love you too and I'm glad that you like the idea :) I was waiting for someone to write something like this too and then one day I was just like I'm going to do this.**

**Lexi Mikaelson: Yeah, it made me really mad that he didn't call her during the show when he's supposed to be the good guy option (which I really do not agree with after all the stuff that he's done and the way that he treats the people that he supposedly cares about)**

**Vamptragic: I don't _think_ that he will be doing any more stunts like that, but I can't be 100% positive.**

**justine: I think that you should be happy with this chapter ;)**

**April420: Her bitchiness is going to diminish now, especially since a lot of the reason that she was so mad at first was because he showed up wasted and wouldn't even explain to her. I agree that Tyler doesn't deserve her and I don't at all see him as the good guy option like we're supposed to. I mean both of them have done some horrible things in the past. Tyler isn't really changing much and he still treats people like garbage a lot. Klaus is changing for Caroline and trying a hell of a lot harder than Tyler ever did.**

**LoTS-Fanatic: Don't worry, you'll get your wish yet. ;)**


	4. Chapter 4

After a few seconds, Caroline's mind began to work again and she returned to the house.

"What happened?" Bonnie asked as soon as Caroline stepped through the front door.

Elena and Bonnie were both standing suspiciously close to the living room window while trying to look casual.

"Both of you stop smirking," Caroline complained. "I broke up with Tyler."

"For Klaus?" Elena asked with an arched brow.

"No." Caroline said sternly. "For me. Turns out that Tyler cared more about getting even with Klaus and didn't really give a shit about me anymore… or maybe ever."

"Okay, but we saw you two kissing," Bonnie pointed out.

"We just happened to coincidentally be walking past the window and noticed," Elena explained in a tone of false innocence.

"Right," Caroline said sarcastically. "I _completely_ believe you."

"So what's it like kissing an Original?" Bonnie asked in a suggestive tone.

"He's had more than enough centuries worth to practice," Elena agreed. "It _must_ have been a pretty good kiss, right?"

Caroline could tell that she was being baited as she responded with, "It wasn't that impressive."

"Oh my god, you're lying!" Elena said excitedly. "Look at her, Bon. She totally thought it was all that impressive."

"She definitely enjoyed it," Bonnie agreed with her.

"Okay, so maybe it was a really good kiss," Caroline admitted. "But that's not my fault that he's a good kisser."

Caroline raised an eyebrow in confusion as something seemed to click in her mind.

"Wait. Do you guys want me to have enjoyed it?" Caroline asked.

"We want you to admit your feelings," Elena responded. "Instead of trying to lie and hide it from yourself and us."

"And you guys would be okay with it if I liked Klaus?" Caroline asked skeptically.

It didn't entirely surprise her that Elena would be okay with it now that she was with Damon, but it was more than a little shocking that Bonnie seemed to be almost encouraging it.

"Of course we would," Elena responded instantly.

"Look, he's not exactly my favourite person," Bonnie admitted. "But I want you to be happy and if he makes you happy then it's okay with me. To be honest you make him better and at least I know that he's not going to hurt you… And if he does, then I will find a way to murder him slowly and painfully."

Caroline let out a little laugh as a relieved smile formed on her lips.

"So I'm assuming that means that you do like him," Elena pried. "But you've just been too afraid to admit it."

"Yeah, kind of," Caroline admitted in a slightly quieter voice.

"So then what are you waiting for?" Bonnie asked. "If you like him then you should go after him."

"But I _just_ broke up with Tyler," Caroline argued. "And I specifically said that it wasn't for him and that I could handle being single."

"I don't think that he's going to hold it against you if you go after him," Bonnie pointed out.

"And the thing between you and Tyler has been dead for a while," Elena pointed out. "It may have officially ended today, but it was over long before that."

"That's true," Caroline agreed.

Elena did have a very good point on that one.

"So then why are you standing here?" Bonnie asked.

"You're right," Caroline said with a sudden burst of confidence.

If Elena and Bonnie were okay with it, then that was all that she really needed. She could easily deal with it if everyone else hated it as long as she had the support of her two best friends.

Caroline opened the door and froze as she looked down the driveway in disappointment.

Stefan and Damon had just turned into the driveway and were walking towards the three girls while wearing their most serious facial expressions.

"What's wrong?" Elena asked as she stepped into the doorway behind Caroline.

"There's a group of angry hunters in town that want revenge," Damon commented as the pair walked up the front steps. "Three of them at least."

"And we need to get rid of them before they get the chance to get rid of us," Stefan finished for his brother.

"And who's going to be stupid enough to volunteer to get a triple hunter's curse?" Caroline asked as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Well that's where you come in, Blondie," Damon responded. "We need you to talk a certain pining hybrid into dealing with them for us. We'd ask, but we all know that he's much more likely to help out when he thinks that just maybe he has the chance to earn your love. So just slap on something revealing and go over there."

Damon shot Caroline a tilted smile. He clearly thought that he was a complete genius for coming up with that plan.

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! I hope that you guys enjoyed the (late) update. Thanks for reading! :D**

**Another great big giant extra thanks goes out to all of the amazing reviewers of the last chapter: chibichibi98, arielmermaid, jessnicole, osnapitzgab, DrawingMyHeartOut, jensoawesome, April420, vampiremovielove, LitLover 101, justine, L, and Marie Katherine**

* * *

**REVIEW ANSWERS:**

**osnapitzgab: I agree that in Tyler's mind Caroline is like a trophy wife, just for when he wants to show her off and when he wants sex.**

**DrawingMyHeartOut: Yeah I usually say that I remembered something funny and when they want an explanation I say that it's too complicated to explain (which it usually is). Most of the time they still want to know and want me to explain, but I'll just refuse. Other times I'll just ignore their looks and not care.**

**April420: There'll be a little bit of a Caroline working to get Klaus…**

**vampiremovielove: I'm glad that you're enjoying it so much and I agree that they should reveal Tyler's actual priorities in season 5 because to me they are very clear.**

**LitLover 101: I've actually never seen that movie.**

**Marie Katherine: I don't think that she will, but it would be cute.**


	5. Chapter 5

_"And who's going to be stupid enough to volunteer to get a triple hunter's curse?" Caroline asked as she crossed her arms over her chest._

_"Well that's where you come in, Blondie," Damon responded. "We need you to talk a certain pining hybrid into dealing with them for us. We'd ask, but we all know that he's much more likely to help out when he thinks that just maybe he has the chance to earn your love. So just slap on something revealing and go over there."_

_Damon shot Caroline a tilted smile. He clearly thought that he was a complete genius for coming up with that plan._

"Why would I do that?" Caroline asked.

"Because there are hunters in town that are out for revenge," Damon pointed out. "Are you telling me that you'd rather die than show a little skin?"

"I'm not doing it," Caroline told him. "Why should Klaus have to get a triple hunter's curse? I'm not going to go convince him to do that."

"Well you picked a real convenient time to start caring about his feelings," Damon said sarcastically. "He's had a quintuple hunter's curse and lived through it. I think he can cope with a triple. Or would you rather the hunters kill some of us first? Elena killed Jordan, so they're going to go after her first probably. And all of us are the targets. If they come after you and your mom tries to get in the way, then they won't think twice about taking her down with you."

"It's your fault that she killed Jordan," Caroline said accusingly. "And I honestly wouldn't be all that heartbroken if the hunters got to you."

"Are you really willing to let them kill Elena first? And to let them kill us all of one by one just so that you don't have to hurt Klaus's feelings?" Damon asked. "If there was ever a time to try to make him do something for you, this would be it."

Caroline didn't want to make Klaus do that, but she also didn't want any of her friends to get hurt.

"Fine," Caroline muttered unhappily. "But I'm not changing into something slutty."

Caroline pushed past him while Stefan shot her an apologetic look.

As Caroline walked down the driveway, Bonnie and Elena both shot Damon death glares.

"What?" Damon asked innocently.

Bonnie rolled her eyes as she turned to walk away from him.

* * *

"Klaus?" Caroline asked as she walked into his place.

He walked into the living room where she was standing.

"I need your help," She said.

She silently kicked herself for what she was about to do.

"With what, Love?" He asked.

Caroline took a deep breath to prepare herself for what she was about to ask for.

"There's a group of hunters in town that want revenge on us for what happened to Connor Jordan," Caroline told him.

"And what am I supposed to do about that?" Klaus asked, cocking his head to the side a little.

Caroline really did not want to have to explain the horrible plan to him. She remained silent for a few seconds as she looked down at the ground.

"…I was already going to come over here when Damon and Stefan showed up and told us about the hunters," Caroline tried to explain as her eyes flicked back up to meet his. "And then I kind of got forced into coming here to try and convince you to go after them since they can't kill y-"

"No." Klaus answered sternly before Caroline could even complete her sentence.

Caroline was slightly shocked by the response since Klaus had always agreed to what she had wanted before.

"Don't look so surprised, Sweetheart. I'm the bad guy, remember? Why would I ever want to help save the good guys?" Klaus asked.

Caroline remained in a silent shock.

"You can go now," Klaus told her. "Go report back to your friends that your mission was a failure."

Klaus would interfere if the hunters were attacking Caroline, but he wasn't about to sign up for a triple curse just to save the good guys all because she had batted her eyelashes at him. He was sick of being walked over.

"I'm not going," Caroline told him. "Like I said before, I was already on my way over here when Stefan and Damon showed up."

"Right," Klaus said in a tone that showed just how little he believed her as he scratched the back of his neck. "Of course you were."

Caroline didn't like the sarcasm in his tone.

"I was," She said sternly. "I was coming over here to tell you that I like you."

"How convenient," Klaus commented. "And you know, I might almost believe you if you weren't trying to get something from me. I'm not stupid Caroline. And I do remember you saying that you weren't breaking up with Tyler for me and that you were going to remain single less than an hour ago."

"I know that I said that," Caroline told him. "And I broke up with Tyler for me, but that doesn't mean that I don't have feelings for you. I said that stuff before the kiss."

"Give it a rest, Caroline," Klaus responded. "Why don't you go whore yourself out to Elijah instead? He's much more likely to buy the whole 'I care about you' act when all you want is something."

Caroline stared at him in shock.

"But I bet that would be too difficult to try to find him," Klaus continued in a venomous tone. "So why don't you lot go use my sister's feelings for Matt against her? Since we both know that abusing people's affection is your group's specialty."

Caroline could feel tears trying to make their way towards her eyes, but she refused to cry in front of him.

She was mad as hell. Mad at the hunters for coming to town, mad at Damon for making her ask Klaus to do that for them, mad at Klaus for calling her a whore…

Caroline ran out of the house at vampire speed.

* * *

"So?" Damon asked when Caroline arrived back at Elena's house. "Did it work?"

"Not exactly," Caroline responded with a fire in her tone. "He called me a whore and then told me to sell myself to Elijah instead, that it would get me more results."

"Oh," Damon said with an innocent shrug. "Well that was unexpected."

"Well it shouldn't be," Caroline argued. "Did you think that he was just going to sit around and be used forever?"

"Honestly?" Damon asked innocently. "Yeah."

"Because you enjoyed it so much when Katherine did it to you?" Caroline challenged.

"You shut your mouth," Damon warned.

"Or because I enjoyed it so much when you did it to me?" Caroline challenged as she got up into his face.

"Caroline," Stefan said in a quiet warning tone. "You have every right to be mad at Damon, but right now we have a more pressing issue to deal with. There are still hunters in town."

Caroline stared Damon down for a few seconds longer until his gaze flickered away.

She stepped back triumphantly and then sat down at the couch.

"I vote that we send Damon after them," Caroline suggested.

"Anybody who isn't an Original going in there would be suicide," Damon pointed out. "I probably couldn't even get rid of one of them before they'd have me dead."

"Well at least that would solve one of our problems," Caroline commented.

"Care," Bonnie warned.

"Okay, sorry," Caroline said exasperatedly. "Fine, what are we going to do now?"

"Damon's right, we need to convince an Original to help us," Stefan admitted. "It's the only way that someone's going in there without dying."

"Oh no," Caroline said angrily. "Please tell me that you guys aren't about to suggest what I think you are."

"Rebekah's the only other one in town," Stefan pointed out.

"It looks like busboy will actually get to be useful for once," Damon commented.

"No!" Caroline said angrily. "You aren't sending Matt to go convince her!"

She already wouldn't have liked that plan, but Klaus's comment about it just made her hate it more.

"We need her help," Damon said angrily. "You know that. How else do you plan on magically getting her on board?"

"Let me talk to her first," Caroline demanded.

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! Thanks for reading and I hope that you liked the chapter. :)**

**Another super big extra thanks goes out to all of the great reviewers of the last chapter: Rose Jean Black, chibichibi98, jessnicole, DrawingMyHeartOut, 1998baby, LitLover 101, and justine**

* * *

**REVIEW ANSWERS:**

**Rose Jean Black: Well she suggested that he go in there, but it doesn't look like he's going to be getting the triple curse.**

**chibichibi98: Sorry, he's not getting any pain _yet_. In Damon's mind this is the only real plan and the way that the least number of people get hurt. But yeah, he's being a dick about it still.**

**1998baby: Damon is cute. Even if he is being a total jerk, in his mind this is the perfect plan and anything else would be worse.**


	6. Chapter 6

"Fine, go talk to her," Damon agreed.

He couldn't imagine that Caroline, a girl that Rebekah didn't even really like, was going to somehow be able to convince Rebekah to do what Caroline couldn't even convince Klaus to do. But he figured that it might make her stop complaining and that he had to do something to make Elena and Bonnie stop glaring over at him every time that he opened up his mouth.

Caroline walked out of the door without another word to head over to Rebekah's apartment.

* * *

"Caroline? What are you doing here?" Rebekah asked in a very confused voice when she opened up her front door.

"We need your help and I came to ask you so that they wouldn't send Matt to use your feelings to try and force you into doing it," Caroline told her.

"Why? Since when do you care about the fact that I have feelings?" Rebekah asked. "If you need something from me, then why would you try to make it so that I wasn't being forced into it?"

"Because it's too much to ask of you," Caroline told her. "There's three hunters in town for revenge and Damon and Stefan want you to go kill them off before they start killing us."

"And you don't want me to?" Rebekah asked with an arched eyebrow. "Why not if you're all at risk?"

"Call me crazy, but I'm against the whole using people thing," Caroline responded. "Especially when it means that they're getting forced into a triple dose of the hunter's curse."

"You don't seem to have a problem with using Nik all the time," Rebekah pointed out as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Actually I do," Caroline responded a little too defensively. "Do you honestly think that I like having to use his feelings for me against him all the time? And yet every time I get forced into doing it. Even today when I completely refused to, Damon basically emotionally blackmailed me into going over there and asking him, which went real well."

"Who says that I won't do it because of my feelings for Matt whether it's you asking or not?" Rebekah asked.

"Well it's obviously not a foolproof plan, but there's less pressure this way," Caroline responded. "And Matt doesn't even know about any of the hunter stuff right now."

"I'll do it," Rebekah told her.

"Are you sure?" Caroline asked, surprised by the other girl's choice.

"Yeah," Rebekah responded.

* * *

Not long later, Damon, Rebekah, Caroline, Stefan, and Elena were standing as close to the hunters' nest as the four that weren't virtually immortal were willing to go.

Bonnie hadn't come along since she had somewhere to go and didn't overly want to be there.

"Have fun," Damon said to Rebekah as she began to walk away from the group.

"Shut up, Damon," Rebekah said before she ran away at vampire speed.

* * *

"This is taking too long," Caroline commented after quite a while of waiting for Rebekah to return.

"She's fine," Damon said. "It's not like they can kill her."

"He's right," Stefan agreed with his brother.

"That doesn't mean that they can't hurt her," Caroline pointed out. "And this is taking way too long."

"Yeah, it feels like she should be back by now," Stefan admitted. "But if we go in there then the hunters _can_ kill us."

Caroline didn't say anything in response; instead she just gave Stefan an unimpressed look.

"So, what?" Elena asked. "We're just going to leave her in there?"

"We could go get Klaus," Stefan suggested.

"And say what?" Caroline asked. "Just go there and say 'Remember how you didn't want to kill the hunters and get a triple hunter's curse? Well I bet that you're going to want to now… I know that you were being sarcastic when you said to go talk Rebekah into doing it, but we decided to go do exactly that anyways... Whoops, my bad. But now the hunters have her and it's been way too long since she went in there, so how would you like to go clean up our mess and maybe kill the hunters as a bonus while you go get your sister back?'? Yeah, thanks. But I think that I'll pass. I'd rather not ask him for anything else today."

"So then what's your brilliant plan? Damon asked her in a challenging tone.

Caroline thought it over for a half second before she came up with her answer.

"I'm going in there," Caroline told them.

"What, are you stupid?" Damon asked. "You'll get yourself killed."

"Damon's right, this is a really bad idea," Stefan told her. "Going in there would be suicide."

"Yeah, and if Damon hadn't had so many stupid ideas already then I wouldn't have to resort to this one," Caroline pointed out.

"Care, don't!" Elena said in a pleading tone, but it was already too late.

Caroline had run off at full vampire speed before Elena had even finished speaking.

"I'm going to go get Klaus," Stefan said immediately before running off.

"I'm going after her," Elena said.

She tried to run off, but Damon's reflexes were too quick as he grabbed her by the arm.

"No, you're not." Damon said sternly as he continued to tightly grasp her by the arm to hold her back.

"Damon, let go of me!" Elena demanded as she attempted to yank her arm away from him.

"I'm not going to let you go in there," Damon told her. "All that will do is get you killed."

"But Caroline needs help!" Elena argued as tears began to stream down her face. "If you love me at all then you would let me go after her."

"I know that she needs help, but there's nothing that you can do to help her. Stefan went to go get Klaus, he'll help her," Damon told her. "And it's because I love you that I'm willing to have you hate me if it means keeping you safe."

"Damon, I'm going and you can't stop me," Elena argued as she ripped her arm out of his hold.

Damon quickly caught hold of her by the shoulders and decided that it was time that he needed to use the sire bond to keep from going in.

Damon held her gaze from just inches away as he said, "Elena, it would make me _really _happy if you would stay right here where it's safe."

"I don't care," Elena responded as she aggressively pulled her shoulders away and turned to go inside.

Damon was shocked that it hadn't worked, but he still managed to grab her just in time to stop her.

"We've wanted you to break the sire bond for how long?" Damon asked. "And you just have to choose when I'm trying to stop you from getting yourself killed."

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! I hope that you guys liked the chapter and thanks for reading! :)**

**Another big extra special thanks goes out to all of the incredible reviewers of the last chapter: 1998baby, DrawingMyHeartOut, jessnicole, chibichibi98, cupcakesweetheart5, justine, Power-Trip, Hazel21, WeasleysGroupie, Rose Jean Black, vampiremovielove, and LitLover 101**

* * *

**REVIEW ANSWERS:**

**chibichibi98: Yeah, Caroline's kind of getting screwed over in the situation.**

**cupcakesweetheart5: Trust me, he's getting one soon enough ;)**

**Rose Jean Black: Yeah, I really wanted Klaus to stand up for himself and stop doing whatever she wants while taking shit from the whole group at the same time.**


	7. Chapter 7

"Klaus!" Stefan called out in a concerned voice as he entered the other man's home.

"What? Having Caroline ask didn't work, so they decided to send you?" Klaus asked him.

"No, Rebekah went," Stefan said, causing Klaus to angrily curse under his breath. "She was in there for too long and Caroline went in after her."

"First she goes and tricks Rebekah into this after everything that I said, and now she was stupid enough to go into a nest of vampires?" Klaus asked angrily.

"She didn't want to come ask you for help getting Rebekah back," Stefan responded.

Klaus was beyond angry. He was angry that Caroline had tried to use him yet again, he was mad that she had used Rebekah after he had sarcastically told her to, he was mad that she had gotten Rebekah stuck in there, and most of all he was furious that she had run into the nest to risk her own life instead of coming to him for help. Maybe he didn't like being used, but he'd rather be used than have her dead.

"Where are they?" Klaus asked through gritted teeth as he headed towards his front door.

* * *

As soon as Caroline entered the nest, all three vampire hunters turned towards her. Caroline let her fangs extend and the veins under her eyes darken as the mask of a monster took over her face.

Caroline instantly noticed Rebekah lying on the floor looking pale and realized that they had bled her practically dry. She had been right, Rebekah had needed help.

One of the hunters pulled a stake out of his pocket and lunged at Caroline, who put her hand up quickly to block it from reaching her chest. Although she had managed to keep herself from being killed, she still had a stake sticking through her hand.

She knocked the hunter back into one of the other two with her strongest kick as the third headed straight for her with another stake.

Caroline quickly ripped the stake out of her hand and dropped it to the ground. She then turned and grabbed the third hunter by the arm and pulled it behind his back, causing a loud cracking noise as she shattered a bone.

"I'm already having a bad day and this is me playing nice, so you'd better stop and listen to me before I get really cranky," Caroline said angrily as she held the man's injured arm behind his back and twisted it a little, causing him to let out a quiet whimper.

"You think that you can just walk into a hunter's nest and start ordering us around, vampire?" One of the others challenged.

"Yeah, maybe I do," Caroline responded. "Because I promise you that me and my friend are walking out of here. Whether you get to walk out of here alive or be carried out to get buried in a shallow grave is up to you."

"You really think that you could take us all down before one of us gets to you?" The hunter she was holding asked her.

"Maybe, maybe not," Caroline responded with a shrug. "But I know that I can drop at least one of you before any of you can get to me. And I have a lot of friends who will be _very_ angry if I don't walk out of here. They probably won't let you die quickly either. I'm willing to give you that courtesy if you're stupid enough to ask for it."

"Don't you know about the hunter's curse?" The first hunter asked.

"The one where if you kill a hunter then you go batshit crazy and start hallucinating things until you kill yourself?" Caroline asked. "Yeah, I know about that. But at least I'd be taking you three down with me and that's better than nothing. So if I was you, then I'd go hunt vampires somewhere else. There are plenty of them out there."

"It's much more effective to kill an Original," One hunter pointed out. "And we want revenge for what your group did to the last hunter that came to town."

"Yeah, it would be a lot more effective to kill an Original if it was possible," Caroline pointed out. "But the only way to do that is with the last white oak stake, right? Well I watched them burn it. Did you honestly think that they were going to keep around the one thing that could kill them? They burned it like they burned the tree."

Caroline knew that what she was saying was a lie, but she also thought that there was the chance that she would be able to trick the hunters.

The hunter that she was still holding onto tried to jerk out of her grasp, only to cause himself to cry out as a shooting pain went through his injured arm.

"The way that I see it, you have two options," Caroline told them. "Leave town to go hunt vampires down somewhere else and give up your little need for revenge, or I start killing you off and worst case someone else finishes the job off for me. I'll let you choose, but it seems a lot more effective to kill off the ones who actually drink from people instead of blood bags."

One of the two hunters that she wasn't holding onto moved to go lunge forward to try and attack her, but the other held him back.

"What are you doing?" The one that had lunged demanded. "She's a monster."

"How long do you think it is before the other one's brother shows up?" The second asked. "They have friends and Vaughn's arm is already broken. How many do you think that we can fight off at once? If the white oak stake is gone, then we're better off leaving town."

"They killed Jordan!" The first one pointed out.

"Yeah, and do you want to get killed to?" The second asked.

"Just let me get her out of here and then leave town as soon as we're gone," Caroline ordered. "This is a limited time offer and you're quickly running out of time."

A predatory smirk formed on her lips.

The second hunter dropped his weapons and took a step away from them while raising his hands in the air. The first followed suit shortly after, although he didn't look very happy about having been defeated by a vampire.

Caroline threw the hunter that she had been holding, Vaughn, to the ground a few feet away and then cautiously made her way towards Rebekah.

She ever so slowly bent down and wrapped one of Rebekah's arms around her shoulder while she wrapped one of her own arms around Rebekah's waist.

* * *

Klaus angrily followed Stefan to spot Damon holding back a thrashing Elena. He didn't pay them much attention though as he faced the entrance to the nest.

He took one step forward, but then stopped and was a little surprised by what he saw.

Emerging from the entrance was Caroline, helping support a very pale and weak looking Rebekah as they began to slowly walk towards the group.

* * *

When Caroline saw Klaus standing there, she inwardly cringed a little that somebody had gone to go get him. She knew that she shouldn't be surprised when she had run in there alone, but she still wasn't looking forward to what he would have to say about what had happened.

It turned out that she didn't need to worry about what he would say about it, since he didn't say a word to Caroline. He just called out his sister's name in a worried tone before running over.

He grabbed Rebekah from Caroline and picked her up so that he had one arm supporting her back and the other under her knees. He sent a glare over to Caroline before running away at full vampire speed.

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! I hope you guys liked the update and thanks for reading! :)**

**A gigantic extra thanks goes out to all of the amazing reviewers of the last chapter: Jwakeel, jessnicole, DrawingMyHeartOut, chibichibi98, arielmermaid, The Hunger Games - My Life, cupcakesweetheart5, justine, saule-teja, and vampirelovver :D**

* * *

**REVIEW ANSWERS:**

**cupcakesweetheart5: Although I don't think that Klaus would ever kill Caroline over being upset about being used, I certainly would not be surprised if he'd end up going on a killing spree in the show if he was feeling like he was being used too much and turned into practically one of the good guys.**

**justine: I wanted Caroline to be all badass and save herself instead of Klaus having to run to the rescue, but I still wanted him to be trying to save her at the same time.**

**vampirelovver: Don't worry, I didn't :)**


	8. Chapter 8

Klaus was halfway back to his place when he caught the scent of fresh blood nearby.

Rebekah needed blood, and as soon as possible, so he turned to follow the scent.

* * *

"Dammit," Matt muttered as he picked himself up off of the ground and looked down at his bloodied wrist.

He looked up and suddenly saw Klaus standing holding a sickly and limp looking Rebekah.

"Rebekah?" He said in a concerned tone, before turning to look up at her brother. "Is she okay?"

"Does she look okay to you?" Klaus asked angrily. "She needs blood."

Klaus looked down at Matt's bleeding wrist to help illustrate his point.

"Nik," Rebekah said hoarsely. "No."

"Okay," Matt agreed. "She can take some of mine."

"No." Rebekah said in a slightly stronger voice, causing her to cough afterwards.

The veins around Rebekah's eyes began to darken involuntarily and she felt her fangs extend. She was too close to his blood while being that hungry to hold it back, but she turned her head away and tried to force her face back to normal.

"He volunteered," Klaus pointed out. "Just take it."

"I'm too hungry," She forced out in a weak voice. "I don't think I could stop."

Rebekah's face returned to normal, although it was very close to transforming back once again.

"Either you drink from him or I'll kill him myself," Klaus told her.

"You wouldn't." Rebekah said in the strongest voice that she could manage in her state.

Klaus's jaw clenched. He couldn't understand why his sister had to be so stubborn about not drinking from some stupid human when she had been so drained by those hunters.

He decided that it was a lost cause and ran off at his full vampire speed, leaving a slightly confused Matt behind.

* * *

"Caroline!" Elena said excitedly before pulling her friend into a big hug.

Elena was beyond happy to find that Caroline was alright and had walked back out in shockingly good condition.

Caroline hugged her back for a long minute before they separated.

As soon as the hug had ended, Caroline turned to stand in front of Damon and then slapped him across the face as hard as she could. She left a red handprint along with a little bit of half dried blood off of her hand from the stake that had gone through it.

Damon grabbed his face in his hand and began to gently massage it, but thought better than to ask what the slap had been for.

Caroline then turned to Stefan, who was giving her an apologetic look for having gone to go get Klaus.

Caroline gave him a weak smile. She was having a terrible day and definitely didn't feel like smiling, but she wanted to assure him that she wasn't mad at him for trying to keep her alive.

Stefan pulled her into a hug less aggressive than the one that Elena had given her.

"Are you okay?" Elena asked her after Stefan pulled away.

Caroline could tell that Elena wasn't asking about whether she was okay after the hunter's nest, but whether she was okay after the silent treatment that she had just received from Klaus.

"I'm fantastic," Caroline said sarcastically before turning to leave for her house to change into something that wasn't covered in her and Rebekah's blood.

* * *

"What are you doing here?" Klaus said angrily when Matt Donovan walked into his house.

"I was worried about her," Matt said as he looked at Rebekah, who had already drunk enough blood bags that she was beginning to regain her colour.

"Why? Feeling guilty for talking her into going in there?" Klaus asked coldly.

"What?" Matt asked, genuinely confused by the question.

"Nik, it wasn't him," Rebekah told him. "He didn't even know about the hunters."

"Well then who was it?" Klaus demanded as he developed a bad feeling that he knew what his sister's response was going to be.

"It was Caroli-" Rebekah began.

"Of course it was." Klaus said through gritted teeth.

"It's not her fault," Rebekah defended. "She came and talked to me so that they wouldn't send Matt. And from what I hear, she didn't want to have to ask you either."

"Because it's so much better if she forces you to go in there than if he does," Klaus said sarcastically.

"Nobody forced me to do anything," Rebekah argued. "I volunteered."

"Why would you do that?" Klaus asked, suddenly angry at his sister as well.

"Because they're my friends, whether they consider me to be theirs or not," Rebekah responded. "And I wanted to help."

It took all of Klaus's energy to keep from shouting at her.

"Don't give me that look," Rebekah demanded. "We both know that there's a time when you would have gone straight in there the instant that Stefan asked you to. And even now you'd get the hunter's curse again if it meant saving him or Caroline."

Klaus remained silent since he knew that it was true. That didn't make it any less angering though.

There was a brief silence before Rebekah spoke up again.

"She saved me," Rebekah pointed out.

Klaus wanted to say that it didn't matter because Caroline had sent Rebekah in first, but apparently Rebekah had supposedly done it of her own free will.

"You should have seen it," Rebekah continued. "She scared three hunters out of town without getting the curse and then convinced them to just let us walk out."

"That's impressive, but she still could have gotten herself killed," Klaus pointed out.

"You can't just get mad at her every time that she puts herself in a dangerous situation," Rebekah told him. "She's a vampire, and in Mystic Falls of all places. You're going to have to get used to the idea of her looking after herself… Especially if you don't want to have to go save her every two minutes."

"I know that she's going to be in dangerous situations, but that doesn't mean that she should run into a hunter's nest by herself," Klaus pointed out.

"Well what exactly did you want them to do about the situation, Nik?" Rebekah challenged. "You didn't want to go in there. You didn't want me to go in there. Did you expect them all to just sit around and wait for the hunters to come after them?"

"I don't know," Klaus admitted.

His sister was right, whether he wanted to admit it or not. There had been a huge flaw in his logic there.

* * *

"Klaus!" Came a voice from near the front doorway. "I know that you're mad, but I need to talk to you."

Klaus left the room to head towards where Caroline's voice was coming from.

* * *

"Sorry about him," Rebekah said, looking over to Matt with an apologetic look.

* * *

Klaus stopped a few feet away from Caroline.

"I'm sorry, okay?" Caroline asked. "And I could say that this is Damon's fault for making me ask you and wanting to ask Rebekah after, but that's not entirely true. I'm the one who came here and asked when I could have refused, and I'm the one who went and talked to Rebekah. I screwed up, but it's not like you haven't screwed up too. So for what it's worth, I don't need anything anymore and I still want to be with you."

"Between Stefan and Rebekah I got most of the story," Klaus told her. "I would have liked to see you scare off those hunters."

Caroline felt a wave of relief wash over her when his response wasn't one of anger.

"So does that mean that you aren't mad at me anymore?" Caroline asked timidly.

Klaus stepped towards her and pulled her in for a long kiss.

Caroline completely forgot about all of the worries that she had come over with as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

"I'm not mad, Love," Klaus told her once he pulled away.

"So does this mean that I should call off the deal with Elijah to whore myself out?" Caroline asked in a teasing tone.

"That depends," Klaus responded with a slight smirk. "How much are you getting?"

"Not enough," Caroline told him. "I think that maybe I should quit the hooker life."

"Sounds good to me," Klaus replied. "I don't want you in bed with all of those other guys."

* * *

Meanwhile, two out of three hunters had left town, while the third was deciding how he was going to get his revenge on that bitch vampire.

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! I hope that you guys liked the chapter and thanks for reading the story! :)**

**Another great big extra special thanks goes out to all of the awesome reviewers of the last chapter: 1998baby, LiaLovinLife, helfabulousgirl, The Hunger Games - My Life, jessnicole, DrawingMyHeartOut, chibichibi98, Aishani108, justine, arielmermaid, Cathalinaheart, WeasleysGroupie, Hazel21, broski1fan, cupcakesweetheart5, Rose Jean Black, LitLover 101, SittingOnTheEdgeOfTheUniverse, vampiremovielove, and the anonymous guest reviewer!**

* * *

**REVIEW ANSWERS:**

**Cathalinaheart: At that point Klaus was still worried about his sister and mad at Caroline beyond logic for putting Rebekah in that situation. But I think you should be happy with the vampire Barbies in this chapter.**

**cupcakesweetheart5: Yes, I'd love for them to include something like this in the show too.**


	9. Chapter 9

Rebekah ended up going home to her own apartment for the night, leaving Caroline and Klaus alone.

* * *

The next morning when Caroline woke up, she instantly noticed that Klaus was still asleep beside her and smiled a little.

Caroline got dressed and headed downstairs in search of a blood bag.

"How did I know that I'd find you here?" Came a voice from behind Caroline as she entered the kitchen.

Caroline's head whipped around to spot that one of the three hunters was standing back across the kitchen from her.

"Surprised to see me?" The hunter asked in an amused tone. "You're little act might have scared the other two out of town, but I'm not letting you get away with it."

It took a second for the words to register in her head. By the time that they did, the hunter was three quarters of the way across the room with a stake in hand.

Self-defence took over and in an automatic reaction she reached forward, pressing her hand into his chest. Before she even realized what she was doing, she was holding his bloody heart in her hand while his body had collapsed to the ground.

* * *

Klaus woke up and frowned when he saw that the other side of the bed was empty.

He threw some clothes on and then headed downstairs.

When Klaus turned into the kitchen, he was more than a little shocked by the image in front of him.

Caroline was standing there frozen with a dead heart in her hand and blood all up her one arm with some more blood on the other. She was staring down wide-eyed at a dead body that lay on the floor next to a discarded stake.

"Caroline?" Klaus asked in a concerned voice as he began to head towards her.

"Oh god," Caroline said as she seemed to snap out of the shock a little. "Oh god!"

She dropped the heart on the ground, but couldn't tear her gaze away from the dead hunter at her feet.

Caroline's legs no longer were able to support her and Klaus had to dash over to catch her. He wrapped his arms tight around her while her arms were tucked in and pressed against his chest.

"The blood's getting all over you," Caroline pointed out.

"I don't care," Klaus told her.

"I don't want to get the curse," Caroline told him. "I don't want to die."

"I know," Klaus told her as he ran a hand through his heart. "And I'm not going to let you die, Sweetheart."

Caroline felt tears forming in her eyes as she let her head rest on his shoulder.

"I'm scared," Caroline admitted.

"I know," Klaus told her. "But it's going to be okay. You're strong."

"No, I'm not," Caroline argued as tears streamed down her face.

"Yes, you are," Klaus told her sternly. "Come on; let's wash this blood off of you."

He gently led her over to the kitchen sink and helped her was the hunter's blood off of her arms and hands.

Once her hands were clean, Caroline began to stare back down at the body on the floor again.

"Hey, don't worry about that," Klaus told her. "I'll deal with the body."

"Don't leave me," Caroline begged.

"I'm not going to," Klaus said honestly as he stared into her eyes. "I'm not leaving you for a second until this curse is over. The body can wait."

"I killed him," Caroline said.

"He was trying to kill you first," Klaus pointed out. "It was self-defence… Did he say anything about the other two?"

"He said that they left town, but that he didn't want to let me win," Caroline answered.

Klaus began to lead her out of the room so that she wouldn't be able to stare at the body anymore.

"What happened to not being afraid of getting the hunter's curse?" A voice behind her asked mockingly.

Caroline whipped her head around to see the hunter that she had just killed standing there.

"It was a nice story, but I think that the whole tough girl act is rendered a little pointless when you start crying and whining and talking about how scared you are after killing just one of us," The hunter continued.

"Caroline, there's nothing there," Klaus told her although he knew very well that with the hunter's curse that didn't really matter.

"Yeah, Caroline," The hunter said in a mocking tone. "What are you looking at, there's nothing here. Are you losing your mind already? I bet that you kill yourself before nightfall."

Caroline forced herself to look away and ignore the hunter as she turned towards Klaus. She chanced a quick glance back to see that for the time being at least, the hunter was gone.

"I should have just killed them yesterday," Klaus told her, already feeling guilty about Caroline getting the hunter's curse.

"No," Caroline argued. "You shouldn't have."

"If I had then you wouldn't have to deal with the curse," Klaus pointed out.

"But you would have for all three of them," Caroline reminded him.

"So?" Klaus asked. "It's not like it could kill me. And even if it could, I would take a triple hunter's curse over this."

"You've got him wrapped around your finger don't you?" The hunter asked as he reappeared. "Just like you have most of this town. But what do you think would happen if all of those girls who want to be you and all of those guys who want to be with you at your school knew what you really were? If they knew that you were a hideous monster? I bet you that they'd turn and run away screaming."

Caroline's body tensed as she turned to look at him again.

"I wonder what they would think if they saw what you did to me," The hunter continued.

"You were trying to kill me," Caroline defended herself.

Klaus wrapped his arms around Caroline again and whispered in her ear, "Whatever he's saying, don't listen to him."

"I was trying to stop a monstrous killer," The hunter corrected.

"No!" Caroline said firmly.

"What, you don't think that's what you are?" The hunter asked as his lip twitched up into a smirk. "How many people have you killed Caroline? Three? …Well I guess four now that you ripped my heart out of my chest and left me to rot on the kitchen floor. Do you know how many people you have to murder to be a serial killer, Caroline? Three. You've exceeded that."

Caroline ripped her gaze away, hoping that it would make him disappear again. She closed her eyes and buried her face in Klaus's chest.

"You were going to kill again, it was only a matter of time," The hunter told her. "So unless you want to become even more of a monster, then you may as well just put an end to this right now."

When a few seconds passed by without the hunter adding anything else, Caroline peeked over at where he had last been standing.

A brief wave of relief came over her as she saw that the space was empty. The relief didn't last long though as she thought about what he had said and the fact that the hunter's curse was only going to get worse from there.

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! I hope that you guys liked the chapter and thanks for reading the story! :D**

**Another great big extra special thanks goes out to the amazing reviewers of the last chapter: LiaLovinLife, jessnicole, cupcakesweetheart5, justine, Athena, DrawingMyHeartOut, WeasleysGroupie, and The Hunger Games - My Life :D**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N ****PLEASE READ THIS****: I've been getting a lot of reviews lately that have been claiming to be or acting as if they are constructive criticism on all of my current stories. I would like to point out the difference between what kind of criticism is constructive and what kind is not here.**

**Constructive criticism is a helpful suggestion that could be used to improve the story in the future and that explains to you what kind of different things you could do instead of just pointing something bad out as a problem and leaving it at that. I am getting quite sick of people forgetting the difference and leaving me passive aggressive reviews that basically tell me that my stories might be able to be acceptable if all of this stuff didn't suck. These are people who do this and then continue to go read more and then review again or even people who have a story as one of their favourites and have been reading it for the whole time (In one case for 38 chapters and 125k+) before leaving this type of review.**

**An example of what would be constructive would be something like: "There's not enough Kol, I think that you should write from his point of view more" or "It would be good if you included more of Caroline's thoughts and reactions".**

**Examples of what is not constructive criticism and what is direct quotes of some of what I've been getting lately is stuff like: "****I didn't like this chapter at all." And "I know they say "quality over quantity" but at this point, the quality isn't reaching its true potential because there's not enough of it.****" And "****as you are in third person work on developing your work"**

**Before you review, please consider this. I am perfectly okay with getting constructive criticism if that is actually what it is. I am not okay, however, with just having you insult me and my writing, especially if you try to have the illusion of trying to help me in the review. I would honestly rather just have a review completely bash me than be one of the ones that claims to be trying to help me out when it is clearly not. So if you have something to say that falls into the constructive criticism minus the constructive part category, then please just go away and stop reading my stories because I honestly do not want you here.**

**All that people like that do is make me quite angry and make it so that I don't want to write or update when I'm putting in all of this effort just to have someone come try and act superior with no helpful suggestions whatsoever. This isn't fair to the readers who actually are enjoying the story and want to read the story, so please just stop.**

**I am also completely done just sitting here and taking these reviews, from now on I will be responding to them and I'm sorry, but I can't guarantee that my response will be entirely kind if your review is not. It will, however, explain to you how what you said is not constructive criticism and I will point out anything that you said that I find to be incredibly inaccurate (which a lot of the times these reviews are) and even back it up with proof.**

**Thank you for reading this entire author's note to those of you who have. Unfortunately, I'm sure that the type of people who are actually the problem are probably not the ones who have actually read through this. I thought that it would be worth a try anyways and now I can point out the fact that I have a specific message about that kind of behaviour at the tops of my chapters.**

**To all of you who have been giving me kind reviews or actual constructive criticism, thank you again.**

* * *

It wasn't long before another not so friendly face appeared in front of Caroline.

"What's the matter?" Carter asked. "You didn't think that you'd ever have to see me again after you killed me at that carnival?"

Caroline stared at the bloody bite mark on his neck in disgust.

"You want a taste?" Carter asked her. "Maybe you shouldn't have drunk it all last time then."

Klaus noticed that Caroline was once again looking over at something that wasn't there. He gently began to stroke her hair in an attempt to comfort her.

"Nothing to say?" Carter asked her. "I died because I was stupid enough to try and help out a crying girl and now you don't even have anything to say to me?"

Caroline flinched as he shouted at her.

"I bet that you had practically forgotten about me. That you'd pushed me as far back in your mind as you could," Carter continued angrily. "You know who can't forget about me? My family!"

Caroline began to shake in Klaus's arms.

"Did you even consider the possibility that I could have a family that's missing me?" Carter aggressively shouted at her.

"Caroline," Klaus said in an attempt to pull her away from whatever it was that she was hallucinating. "Caroline, look at me."

"Yeah, listen to him," Carter said sarcastically. "You look over at him and let him comfort you. Let him make you feel better about murdering me. I'm sorry; I didn't realize that my death was all so that he could comfort you."

"Caroline." Klaus said a little more sternly.

Caroline's head whipped around to face Klaus as more tears began to stream down her face.

Klaus hated seeing Caroline like this. He wanted to bring the hunter back to life for long enough to torture and kill him for making her go through this.

"Everything's going to be okay," Klaus told her even though he himself was concerned for her and what would happen.

"He's lying, you know," Damon's voice told her in a helpful tone.

Caroline turned around to see Damon's signature smirk spread across his lips.

"Nothing's going to be alright," Damon told her. "And can I let you in on a little secret?" His voice turned into a loud whisper as he said, "You're going to die."

Caroline watched in horror as an even bigger smirk formed on Damon's lips.

"And honestly you should just be glad that you even got to live for this long," Damon commented. "I mean I should have killed you a long time ago. Back when I was stupid enough to ever think that you could be of any use to me. You know what? I was right when I said that you were stupid, shallow, and useless."

Caroline remembered the night that Damon had called her those things the first time. It had been back when she was human and he had wanted her to get a necklace back from Bonnie for him.

"Every day that I have to see your face I'm reminded of how stupid I was to not kill you when I had the chance," Damon continued. "Even now the only reason that I haven't is because of Elena."

Caroline tried to make herself stop paying attention, but couldn't.

"I think that even Elena's starting to get sick of you. How could she not be?" Damon taunted. "All that you are is a self-obsessed, annoying, neurotic little waste of space."

"He's right you know," Klaus told her in his most casual tone.

Caroline turned to look at him in shock and horror. Her eyes widened to the size of saucers as she tilted her head slightly in confusion.

"What?" She asked quietly.

"I said that he's right," Klaus said as if he was talking to someone who was hearing impaired. "I should get an award for having put up with you for so long. But I guess that will be the reward of your death. You, you've got to be my best torture yet."

Caroline's brow furrowed in confusion as she continued to stare.

"When I spent time with you on your birthday I saw how much of a pushy little thing you were and I decided right then that a simple werewolf bite wasn't a painful enough death for someone like you," Klaus told her with a sadistic smirk. "So I decided to convince you that I had feelings for you. I wanted to seduce you until you couldn't resist anymore. I needed you to have feelings for me and think that I would never do anything to hurt you so that the look on your face would be that much better when you found out how I really feel about you."

Caroline wriggled in an attempt to escape his grasp, but he grabbed her arm and kept her from getting away.

"And now I get to watch you lose your mind to the hunter's curse until you do the job yourself," Klaus told her happily. "Oh, and don't worry, Love. If you survive the curse, then I'll just rip your heart out myself… Literally."

Caroline violently ripped her arm out of his grip and then ran as fast as she could towards the stairs.

As Klaus quickly dashed after her, he cursed under his breath for not having been able to stop her before she ran off. He had seen that she clearly wasn't hearing the words that he was really saying, probably not seeing the same face either, and yet he hadn't made sure that he was holding onto her tightly enough in case she would try to get away from whatever it was that she had been seeing instead.

He got to the top of the stairs and found her sitting on the floor of his bedroom quietly sobbing.

"Caroline?" Klaus asked cautiously. "I don't know what you saw before or if you're seeing and hearing something else now too, but it's me… Can I come over there?"

"No," Caroline responded quickly. "Just wait a minute. My head hurts and I'm trying to figure out what's real."

Klaus instantly froze in place and decided that it was best to listen to her instead of scaring her off again.

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! Thanks for reading and I hope that you guys enjoyed the update! :D**

**Another great big extra special thanks goes out to all of the incredible reviewers of the last chapter who helped me to reach more than 100 reviews on this story so far: arielmermaid, vampirelovver, jessnicole, Rose Jean Black, cupcakesweetheart5, justine, Cathalinaheart, Athena, DrawingMyHeartOut, SittingOnTheEdgeOfTheUniverse, MyloveforKlaroline, LitLover 101, Heidiionaanita, and HotHybridSex :)**

* * *

**REVIEW ANSWERS:**

**vampirelovver: You're just going to have to wait and see how many more chapters it will be. ;) I have a somewhat guess that I'm not one hundred percent be the truth, so you're just going to have to wait.**


	11. Chapter 11

Elena was worried about Caroline after everything that happened the day before, so she decided to call her friend and see how she was doing.

When Caroline didn't answer her cell phone or her home phone any of the times that she tried to call them, Elena began to get worried.

"Where are you going?" Damon asked as Elena headed towards the door.

"To go look for Caroline," Elena told him. "She's not answering her phone."

"She's probably fine," Damon comforted her.

"She got three hunters mad at her yesterday and now she isn't answering her phone," Elena pointed out. "Probably isn't good enough."

"I'll come and help then," Damon told her, not wanting Elena going anywhere dangerous on her own.

* * *

Caroline forced herself to try and remember everything that had happened. She slowly went backwards through the conversation with Klaus in her head until she reached something strange.

"He's right you know." Klaus had definitely said, "He's right you know" in order to grab her attention.

He had been agreeing with Damon, who couldn't have really been there. Damon had to be a hallucination since he had appeared out of nowhere and then disappeared just as easily. And if Klaus had been responding to a hallucination when he had started saying those horrible things, then that must have been a hallucination too.

"It wasn't real," Caroline muttered to herself. Her voice came out surer as she told herself again, "It wasn't real."

"That's right, Love," Klaus said, feeling relief wash over him at her words.

"It wasn't really you saying that stuff," Caroline reassured herself as she looked up at Klaus.

He felt a pang of pain and guilt as he realized that Caroline hadn't been seeing someone else, but had just been seeing him saying different words.

"You don't want to kill me," Caroline continued.

"I'd rather kill myself, Sweetheart," Klaus told her. "Whatever you heard, you were hallucinating."

"Help me," Caroline begged through her tears.

Klaus cautiously walked over to her, wanting to make sure that she wouldn't get scared and run off again if she began to hallucinate.

Once he reached her, Klaus sat down on the floor next to her and wrapped her up in his arms.

"I'm here and I'm not going to let anything happen to you," Klaus comforted her.

* * *

Damon and Elena tried looking at Caroline's house, but had no luck finding her.

They did, however, find her cell phone sitting where she had left it the night before when she had gone home to change before going over to Klaus's place.

"I think something's wrong, Damon," Elena said as they walked back out of Caroline's house.

"Maybe Klaus knows something," Damon responded in an attempt to try to make Elena feel better. "Or at the very least he'll want to know that she's missing so that he can help look."

"She might have gone there," Elena agreed, trying to convince herself that her friend had just gone to Klaus's place and forgot to bring her phone.

Elena desperately tried to convince herself that nothing was wrong as they began to head towards Klaus's mansion.

* * *

"You aren't my daughter anymore," Bill Forbes told Caroline as he appeared before her in the room. "You're a filthy monster wearing her face. I shouldn't have been weak enough to try and help you. I should have killed you while I still had the chance to."

"Dad?" Caroline said weakly through her tears.

"Caroline, that isn't your real father," Klaus told her.

"You know that you're going to end up killing someone else, Caroline," Bill told her. "You can't help it. As hard as you try to fight it, the demon inside you will take over again. If there's any part of you that's still my daughter, then you will kill yourself now instead of innocent humans later."

Caroline was staring over at the empty space where she saw her father in an almost hypnotized trance.

"Caroline, look at me." Klaus said sternly, but Caroline didn't seem to hear him. "Look at me, Love!"

As Klaus shouted he grabbed onto the side of Caroline's head and as gently as he could turned her head to force her to look at him.

Caroline tried to turn her head back towards the vacant space, but Klaus put up his other hand to firmly hold her head so that she was facing him.

"That isn't your father," Klaus repeated. "That's just a hallucination. I know that it's hard, but you can't listen to it. Don't let the curse change what you know."

"What you know?" Bill asked, causing Caroline to attempt to turn her head once again. "What you know is that I hate your kind. That I would rather die than become like you."

"Caroline, keep looking at me," Klaus said as he held her head still. "I promise you that there is no one over there."

"I know that my dad hated vampires. I know that he died so that he wouldn't have to become like me," Caroline responded to her hallucination. "But I also know that even though he wouldn't turn, he said that he was still proud of the person that I was."

Klaus began to smile.

"That's right, Love," Klaus told her. "Your father loved you. Whatever you're hearing isn't him."

"Key word 'was'," Bill pointed out. "That was before you fell in love with this guy and before you killed a hunter."

"If I didn't kill the hunter, he would have killed me," Caroline argued. "And I fell in love with Klaus because he changed. He's better now."

Klaus was shocked by what he had just heard. He was sure that he hadn't been supposed to know yet that Caroline was in love with him.

"He's a monster just like you!" Bill shouted, causing Caroline to flinch. "And you should have let that hunter kill you!"

Klaus saw Caroline flinch and knew that she wasn't quite as sure of herself as he had thought that she had been when she was arguing with her hallucination.

"Ignore him, Love." Klaus demanded sternly. "Listen to me."

Caroline's eyes focussed back on him as she gave him a slight nod to show that she was listening.

"I'm in love with you Caroline," Klaus told her. "And you're right, I'm better now. That's because of you. If you die then I'm not going to be able to handle that. The world needs you here to keep me in check, okay?"

Caroline nodded as her tears began to slow a little.

"You can't die," Klaus said sternly. "Just think about how many lives you'll be saving by keeping me on the good side."

"What happened to being the bad guy?" Caroline asked him as she moved to wipe the half dried tears from her face.

"You happened," Klaus told her.

* * *

"Klaus!" Elena called out as she walked through the front door. "…Damon, why does it smell like blood in here?"

It didn't smell like the blood was all that fresh, but it was definitely a lot of blood and from that morning at the earliest.

"I don't know," Damon said with a frown. "I'm going to go look."

As Damon disappeared out of the room, Elena headed towards the stairs in the hopes of finding Caroline or at least Klaus.

Elena was about to shout out for him again when she turned a corner and saw them through an open bedroom door.

"Oh my god," Elena said as she looked into the room.

Klaus was on the floor holding Caroline whose face was stained and puffy from crying. That wasn't the really shocking part though. The worst part was the dried blood that covered both of their clothing, especially Caroline's.

"Now's not really a good time," Klaus told her.

"What happened?" Elena asked without taking her eyes off of her friend.

"One of the hunters stayed back to come looking for her," Klaus said in a much quieter tone than usual. "I was asleep still, I couldn't stop it."

Elena's eyes widened as the meaning of the words registered.

Damon walked into the room after finding the dead body and stray stake in the kitchen.

Caroline instantly flinched back at the sight of Damon. She buried her head in Klaus's neck and moved as far away from Damon as she could manage in Klaus's grip.

"So I'm going to take a wild guess and say that she's the one who killed the hunter in the kitchen," Damon said with a frown.

"Caroline, it's just Damon," Elena told her.

"I bet that you wish that you killed the hunters now," Damon told Klaus.

Elena went to go open her mouth to yell at Damon, but someone else took the opportunity first.

"No." Caroline argued determinedly.

"Why?" Damon asked, his brow furrowing in confusion. "Because you're enjoying the curse so much?"

"Because I'm not," Caroline responded before removing her head from Klaus's neck and forcing herself to stare Damon down even though she was scared. "Besides, you need him. You don't need me. I'm just stupid, useless, and shallow. Right?"

"I never said that," Damon defended himself.

"Damon, leave her alone," Elena told him. "She's been hallucinating."

"Maybe the time today was a hallucination, but not the other time," Caroline responded. "Do you really not remember, Damon? I sure do no matter how hard I try to forget."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Damon told her.

"Maybe you should leave, Damon," Elena suggested.

"I didn't do anything," Damon defended himself.

"You're making it worse," Klaus told him. "I had her calmed down before you two showed up."

"Does Stefan's birthday ring any bells for you?" Caroline asked Damon.

There was a sinking feeling in Damon's chest as he remembered the night that Caroline had been talking about. The night that he had been at his absolute worst when it came to the way that he had treated Caroline.

"There it is," Caroline said as she saw the look on Damon's face. "This is all your fault. If it weren't for you I'd still be human. I wouldn't have had such a shitty day yesterday and I wouldn't have the hunter's curse now."

"Maybe not," Damon told her. "But you also might not even be alive. And you'd still be as pathetic as you were as a human."

"Damon!" Elena shouted angrily. "Leave her alone!"

"No," Damon told Elena before turning back to Caroline.

"Katherine changed you to get to Stefan. You'd still be a vampire," Damon told her. "Only difference is that Klaus wouldn't be trying to help you right now because he would have already killed you instead of Jenna. Maybe I was a dick and tried to kill you before, but it's not like he didn't try too."

Klaus appeared to be about two seconds from murdering Damon. The only thing that was stopping him was the fact that he was too busy holding Caroline, both to comfort her and keep her from running off.

"You being mad at me because you're a vampire is like me being mad at Katherine for turning me," Damon told her. "You like being a vampire and you wouldn't go back to the self-obsessed attention craving girl that you were when we met even if you had the option."

"Leave now." Klaus said through gritted teeth.

Caroline knew that what Damon was saying was true. That she liked who she was now a lot more than whom she used to be and that she didn't want to go back. But then why was she so convinced that there was something wrong with her and that she was a monster right now?

"Fine," Damon said, raising his hands in a sign of innocence as he turned to head for the door.

"Wait," Caroline said, surprising even herself. "He's right. And it makes no sense."

Damon stopped and turned around, seeming a little confused.

Suddenly something seemed to click in his brain as a slight smirk formed on his lips.

"You like being a vampire, you don't want to be human," Damon repeated proudly. "So then why are you being guilted for what you are right now?"

"Because you're a murderer," The hunter told her. "A serial killer at that."

Caroline turned and stared at him, but by the time that she had blinked it was Elena standing there again.

"It's because you've killed," Damon continued.

Elena glared at him, trying to will him into shutting up. She didn't say anything though, since she wondered where he was going with this.

"Stefan's killed. Is he a monster, Caroline?" Damon asked. "Does Stefan deserve to die?"

"What?" Caroline asked, genuinely confused by the question. "Why would he-"

"Exactly," Damon said, looking quite proud of himself. "You don't think that Stefan deserves to die. He's killed a lot more people than you have. You don't deserve to die either. Keep that in mind when the hallucinations are telling you otherwise, Blondie."

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! And keep the criticism constructive! Thanks to all of the amazing people who sent me all the nice reviews and messages after last chapter :) Sorry that this chapter is a day late, I was driving almost all day yesterday on a family road trip. Thanks for reading and I hope that you guys liked the chapter! Look, it's even longer than usual :D**

**Another great big extra special thanks goes out to all of the fantastic reviewers of the last chapter: jessnicole, Carroline, starlightsps, vamptragic, SittingOnTheEdgeOfTheUniverse, arielmermaid, HotHybridSex, Entirely Torn, Aishani108, helfabulousgirl, DrawingMyHeartOut, The Hunger Games - My Life, WeasleysGroupie, justine, LitLover 101, April420, VAlover21, and Heidiionaanita :)**

* * *

**REVIEW ANSWERS:**

**jessnicole: Thanks! :D**

**Carroline: Aww thanks. And look, this chapter's longer! :D**

**starlightsps: Thanks so much! :)**

**vamptragic: That means a lot! :)**

**SittingOnTheEdgeOfTheUniverse: Thanks for reading the A/N and the response. :)**

**Entirely Torn: I didn't want it to be just hallucinating people that weren't there without having her see people as someone or something else just because that would be convenient for Klaroline. This is the hunter's curse, it doesn't care about their feelings. If anything it wants to exploit Caroline's. And look, I made a longer chapter :D**

**Aishani108: Sorry about the confusion, that was just Caroline hallucinating when Klaus was saying all of that mean stuff at the end of the last chapter.**

**DrawingMyHeartOut: Thanks :) I don't think I need you going to cut anyone, but I'll let you know if I ever do. :P**

**LitLover 101: Thanks and I totally agree. :)**


	12. Chapter 12

Caroline watched in horror as she looked up to find the hunter standing next to Elena with a stake in his hand.

"She's a monster too," He told her. "You surround yourself with monsters; did you honestly think that you wouldn't become one?"

Caroline desperately tried to convince herself that what she was seeing wasn't real.

"You and your friends all deserve to die," The hunter growled. "Especially you and this one. She's the one that killed Jordan. She should have died from the hunter's curse just like you will. But don't worry; I'll take care of her."

The hunter began to drive the stake towards Elena's chest.

Caroline leapt up so fast that it caught Klaus off guard enough that she was able to rip out of his grasp.

Before anyone had the chance to react, Caroline was across the room sticking her hand into the chest of what she thought was the hunter.

As Caroline was about to rip the heart in her grasp out of the hunter's chest, suddenly the hunter disappeared to be replaced by Elena. The Elena that had been standing beside the hunter vanished as well.

"Care?" Elena said weakly as she looked at her friend with pleading eyes.

Damon and Klaus wanted to go pull Caroline off of Elena, but they were afraid that they wouldn't be able to do so without having Caroline rip Elena's heart out.

Caroline quickly released her grasp on her friend's heart and pulled her arm back. She slowly backed away from Elena in horror as she looked down at the fresh blood on her arm.

"I didn't mean to," Caroline said quietly as the others stared at her. "I thought-"

Klaus got up as slowly as he could in an attempt to not scare her off as Damon stepped in front of Elena in case Caroline ended up trying something like that again.

* * *

"You were going to kill your best friend," Carter said as he appeared standing uncomfortably close to Caroline.

Caroline took a step back, flinching away from him.

* * *

Klaus froze, not sure whether Caroline was flinching back from him or something else.

"Do you really think that the kind of monster who is willing to murder their best friend really deserves to live?" Carter asked as he took another step forward.

"I was trying to help her!" Caroline defended as she took another step backwards, hitting a wall as she did so.

* * *

Damon suddenly had a bad feeling that Caroline meant that she was trying to help Elena by killing her since she was a monster.

"You should go, Elena," Damon told her.

Elena wanted to help her friend and she would have fought against Damon's suggestion if she hadn't just almost had her heart ripped right out of her chest. Besides, it didn't seem like her being there was helping Caroline out at all.

Elena nodded her head at him as she quietly said, "Okay."

"I'm sorry," Caroline whispered as she crumpled to the floor, leaning back against the wall.

Fresh tears were streaming down Caroline's face at full speed and Elena looked towards her friend guiltily as she hesitated to leave.

"I'm sorry," Caroline repeated as she continued to sob.

Damon turned around and gave Elena a meaningful look that caused Elena to force herself to turn away and leave the room.

"Caroline?" Klaus asked as he slowly began to walk towards her once again.

"I'm sorry," Caroline continued to repeat. "I'm sorry."

* * *

"Sorry isn't good enough, Honey," Carter told her unsympathetically. "Sorry doesn't do anything. It can't change the past. Sorry won't bring me back to life, sorry won't keep your friend from being afraid of you, and sorry won't make you any less of a monstrous demon."

"I'm sorry," Caroline said again. It was all that she could think of.

"Stop saying that!" Carter shouted in a vicious snarl.

Caroline shrunk back and let out a quiet whimper as she stared up at him.

* * *

Klaus froze again as Caroline tried to make herself as small as possible and let out a whimper while staring up at him.

It was unmistakable that whatever she was seeing was being seen instead of him as she stared right up into his eyes with a look of pure terror.

"I'll stop," Caroline said quietly. "Please..."

"We can't just keep her here," Damon pointed out. "She's going to end up killing someone if she keeps seeing something and then charging like that. At the very least she'll end up killing herself."

"Well then what do you suggest?" Klaus growled angrily.

Klaus wanted to rip Damon's throat out at that moment. All that Damon was doing was bringing up more problems instead of saying anything productive.

"We should move her to the Lockwood cellar," Damon responded. "There's a cage there where the wolves locked themselves up. That way we can keep her away from anything that she could use to hurt herself and she can't get close enough to anyone to try and kill them."

Klaus didn't like the idea of locking Caroline in a cage, but he also had to admit that it was a better plan than keeping her there.

"We just have to figure out how to get her there," Klaus commented as he stared down at Caroline.

* * *

"I don't owe you anything, Monster!" Carter shouted at Caroline. "If you didn't want me to yell at you then maybe you shouldn't have murdered me!"

Caroline shut her eyes and let her head rest on her knees as she whispered to herself over and over, "He's not real. He's dead, he can't be here."

* * *

Klaus watched silently as he hoped that she would be able to convince herself and make the hallucinations go away at least temporarily.

* * *

Caroline timidly peeked up to find that Carter had disappeared to be replaced by a concerned looking Klaus.

Caroline stood up as she tried to wipe the still flowing tears away from her eyes. Caroline took a step forward and wrapped her arms around Klaus, burying her head in his shoulder.

"I just want it to stop," Caroline told him, her voice muffled by his shirt.

"I know," Klaus told her as he held her tightly while gently stroking her back with one hand.

* * *

"There's one way to make it stop," Caroline heard the hunter say as she kept her head buried and tried to ignore him. "If you kill yourself then you won't have to deal with any of this anymore."

* * *

Caroline began to sob harder into Klaus's shoulder. She didn't want to die, but she also didn't want to have to put up with the hallucinations for any longer.

"We need to move you somewhere safer, okay?" Klaus asked.

"Okay," Caroline agreed.

"What are we going to do if she starts hallucinating and tries to run away or attack someone on the way?" Damon asked Klaus.

"I'll carry her," Klaus responded. "I won't let her run away."

"Yeah," Damon replied. "No offense, but you're not exactly doing a great job at that."

"Well do you have any better ideas?" Klaus growled. "Or do you just want to stand there and judge mine?"

"Well there is one way that we can make sure that she doesn't run away," Damon pointed out. "We could break her neck."

"We aren't breaking her neck!" Klaus shouted immediately in response.

Caroline looked between the two men and realized that Damon's answer was the only logical solution.

"Do it," Caroline begged. "I don't want to hurt anyone… Do it."

Klaus hesitated for a moment, not sure that he would even be capable of doing something like that. But Caroline wanted him to and it would help her, so he convinced himself that it was just like making her sleep since she would wake up later.

Klaus moved his hands to her neck as quickly as he could so that he would be able to get it over with as fast as possible and then snapped her neck.

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! I tried to insert some line breaks to make things less confusing between the hallucinations, so I hope that worked... Sorry that this update is two days late for being daily, I _think_ that the next one should be up tomorrow. I hope that you guys liked the chapter and thanks for reading :)**

**Another great big extra special thanks goes out to all of the amazing reviewers of the last chapter: 1998baby, DrawingMyHeartOut, souzap, cinnamon0478, cRaZyGuRl093, April420, Zsuzsanna, jessnicole, justine, kieckykiecky, WeasleysGroupie, Aishani108, VAlover21, Heidiionaanita, Iansarmy, marie65291, Athena, jhemlovesdamon, arielmermaid, and LitLover 101  
**

* * *

**REVIEW ANSWERS:**

**cRaZyGuRl093: There'll be some more Daroline friendship to come. :)**

**Zsuzsanna: No Damon apology yet, but there might just be one later ;)**

**WeasleysGroupie: Good, I wanted you guys to have mixed feelings about Damon :)**

**Aishani108: No problem :)**

**marie65291: Aww thanks :)**

**Athena: Bonnie is still alive, but I don't think that Kol is (as much as I love him) since Tyler ran away already.**

**LitLover 101: Exactly! The thing about Damon is that he's willing to try things that other people aren't in order to protect the people that he deems worthy. Anybody else is disposable if their lives can be taken instead of the life of someone that Damon cares about and wants to protect.**


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: Attention people who like reading my stories! My sister (Doctor Sexy) and I have created a joint account under the name of DoctorImDrowningInSexyFootwear. We agreed on two very general plot ideas and are now switching off for who updates each chapter without being able to discuss what will happen next or have any control over what the other writes. The names of the stories and the brief summaries are:**

**Should Have Covered Your Stump: Damon was forced to take the cure to survive and Elena was never a vampire. Not used to having to use protection, Damon gets Elena pregnant within a day. This is the story of that pregnancy and child.**

**Friday the**** 15th: A year after Elena Gilbert's parents were killed in a tragic car accident due to a malfunction in the brake, strange things begin to happen. Someone out there wants to kill her. Someone who is toying with her, leaving her threats and hurting her friends.**

* * *

Caroline woke up and instantly sat up scared as she tried to figure out where she was.

When she realized that she was in the cage of the Lockwood cellar, she was confused to see Klaus sitting next to her.

"You do realize that coming into the cage with me kind of defeats the whole purpose of me being in here, right?" Caroline asked him. "You shouldn't be in here."

"You can't kill me, Sweetheart," Klaus pointed out.

"But I can hurt you," She responded.

"I think that I can handle it," He assured her. "I'm not going to lock you in a cage by yourself."

* * *

"This is where you belong," The hunter told her. "In a cage like the killer you are. How fitting that this is where you'll stay until you die."

* * *

"Keeping her alive is good and everything, but how are we going to end the hunter's curse?" Damon spoke up from where he sat against the wall a few feet from the bars of the cage, on the outside unlike Klaus. "Even if we still had Jeremy what would we do? Just take him and go up to every single guy on the planet and ask them if they can see his tattoo? Somehow I doubt it's going to be as easy to find a potential hunter this time."

* * *

"Maybe they can get every guy in the world to kill a vampire," The hunter suggested happily. "That would be a nice bonus having that many of you monsters die…"

"I just want this to be over," Caroline spoke up quietly. "How much longer do I have to deal with this?"

Caroline knew that neither of the men in the room would have an answer, but that didn't stop her from asking.

"I don't know," Klaus said as he turned towards her.

He didn't have the heart to tell her that although technically it could end at any moment, it was far more likely that she was going to be stuck with the curse for a very long time.

* * *

"You're going to be stuck with this for years at least," The hunter answered her question. "That is unless you just want to end this now. This is only day one. Imagine thousands of days of this as it continuously gets worse. Wouldn't it be easier just to end it now? I promise you that there isn't a vampire anywhere near a potential hunter. I'm dead; do I have any reason to lie to you?"

The tears began to stream down her face again.

"The curse isn't going to stop anytime soon, you may as well just end it now," The hunter continued. "Or do you really want them to spend years helping keep you alive just to have you kill yourself in the end anyways? And do you really think that even if the curse is broken that you won't still feel all of this guilt? That you won't want to die anyways?"

Caroline buried her head in Klaus's shoulder while trying to block the voice out and reminding herself that Stefan didn't deserve to die so neither did she.

* * *

"I don't know what to do," Klaus responded to Damon as he wrapped his arm around Caroline and began to gently stroke her arm. "Just sitting here waiting isn't exactly a useful plan, but I'm not going to leave her."

"Well maybe the curse will be over quicker for her," Damon suggested although he wasn't anywhere near as optimistic as his words were. "She only has to wait for one potential hunter to get activated, not five."

"It took over half a century for five," Klaus pointed out. "That's over ten years for each one."

"Maybe there was just one really slow one?" Damon asked, desperately searching for something to hold onto.

* * *

"Did you hear Lover Boy?" The hunter asked. "He's already had to deal with the curse for over half a century. So why should he have to deal with your curse for as long as it's going to take?"

* * *

"Hopefully," Klaus responded grimly. "Because I can't think of a single thing that I can do to end this while she's sitting here suffering."

* * *

Caroline continued to try to block the hunter's voice out as she told herself over and over that if Stefan didn't deserve to die that she didn't either.

"You're right you don't deserve to die, you deserve to suffer from the curse for an eternity," Carter taunted.

Suddenly there was something very off about the way that the hand was stroking her arm. Something was disturbingly different even if she couldn't quite pinpoint what.

She hesitantly looked up and froze in horror when she saw that it was Carter holding her and stroking her arm and not Klaus.

A shudder went through her as her whole body tensed up.

* * *

Klaus noticed the change in Caroline's body language and the look on her face and wrapped his other arm around her and tightened his grip a little even though he knew that she should be safe in the cage.

* * *

"What's the matter?" Carter taunted as he grabbed on with his other hand and tightened his grip. "Aren't you having fun, yet?"

She writhed in his grasp in an attempt to escape, but had no luck.

"That's okay, we're just warming up anyways," Carter said with a smirk. "I could do this _forever_."

She felt him tighten his grip on her even more, beginning to hurt her.

"Your own boyfriend snapped your neck just so that he didn't have to deal with you," Carter snarled at her. "You don't deserve to live and there is nothing that you can do to end this curse unless you end yourself!"

His grip tightened once again and Caroline could feel his nails digging through her flesh.

She looked down at her arms temporarily to find that blood was welling up and then looked back up to see Tyler's face just inches away as he held onto her.

"Why can't I get rid of you?" Tyler shouted angrily. "Don't you get it? I want nothing to do with you. _That_ is why I never answered your calls!"

Caroline tried to pull back, but his grasp remained painfully tight.

"When I bit you the first time it wasn't because of the sire bond." Tyler growled. "It was because I wanted to. I wanted you dead. I wanted to kill you!"

Caroline's mind realized that he had said 'the first time' as though it had happened more than once just before Tyler's eyes turned yellow and his mouth sprung for her neck.

She screamed in pain as he bit down on her neck hard. She clenched her eyes shut and waited for him to stop.

* * *

As Caroline began to scream in agony for unknown reasons, Klaus shook her a little as he called out her name.

"…Caroline!" Klaus tried again.

Her eyes snapped open to see Klaus and he stopped shaking her, but continued to hold onto her arms.

Caroline was sobbing as she pleaded, "Stop it, you're hurting me."

Klaus was horrified and instantly loosened his grip on her, not wanting to cause her any pain.

* * *

As the grip slightly loosened, suddenly it was Tyler in front of her once again and he was smirking as his teeth glinted in the faint sunlight coming in from the single window high up on the wall.

Caroline ripped her body out of his grip, finally successfully, and scratched Tyler across the face, drawing blood. She began to run across the cell and halfway there stopped.

She quickly turned and faced the tiny barred window and had an idea. She didn't want to have to endure the curse for an indefinite period of time… She didn't want to die at the hands of some stupid werewolf bite… If she had to die, then she may as well get it over with on her own terms.

Caroline ripped her ring off and threw it through the small window in one swift movement. She didn't realize that there was in fact no blood on her arms like she had thought before as the small rectangles of sunlight began to burn her skin.

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! Sorry that this one is a day late again... I hope that you guys liked it and thanks for reading! :)**

**Another great big extra special thanks goes out to all of the amazing reviewers of the last chapter: Iansarmy, DrawingMyHeartOut, arielmermaid, cRaZyGuRl093, jessnicole, kieckykiecky, Aishani108, WeasleysGroupie, justine, LitLover 101, oneindigorose, and Carroline**

* * *

**REVIEW ANSWERS:**

**cRaZyGuRl093: ...She did something pretty extreme to try and stop them... *looks down at the ground all guilty like***

**WeasleysGroupie: Thanks :D I love reviews even if they don't have anything to say :D**

**oneindigorose: This one does in fact have some Mabekah ;)**

**Carroline: *smiles like an idiot***


	14. Chapter 14

"Caroline!" Klaus shouted in concern as he sprung to his feet and ran towards her as fast as he physically could.

Caroline let out a pained whimper as smoke rose from her bubbling and blistering flesh. She held through the pain as she clenched her eyes shut and waited for it to be over.

Suddenly a different type of pain hit Caroline like a ton of bricks. The new pain first slammed into the whole front of her body and then her whole back.

Caroline sheepishly opened her eyes as the pain began to numb itself out.

She was lying on the hard floor of the cell, a few feet away from the patch of light, as Klaus pinned her there by covering her body with his own.

"Why did you stop me?" Caroline demanded as she flailed violently against his grip. "Just let me go!"

This time Klaus didn't care about being gentle, he was holding her down as roughly and tightly as he could. They were beyond the point of being able to try not to hurt Caroline while trying to keep her safe. They had reached the point where it was necessary to be rough and cold-hearted in order to keep her alive and okay.

"Stop it! That hurts!" Caroline shrieked as she thrashed around. "Klaus, you're hurting me! Let _go_!"

It wasn't just an attempt to make him let her go; Caroline honestly did feel shooting pains in her shoulders from where his hands were holding her down against the concrete.

"Can't do, Love," Klaus told her sternly. "If I let go of you, or even just loosen my grip a little, then you're going to try that again… Sorry, but hurt is better than dead, Sweetheart."

"_No_, it isn't!" Caroline argued. "You don't get it! I can't do this for years! Or even days, for that matter! Trying to keep me alive is just torture for us all!"

"I _do_ get it," Klaus told her through gritted teeth. "I've been through it before; I _know_ how awful and hopeless it all feels… But it isn't hopeless and you _can_ make it out of this alive."

"I don't want to!" Caroline shouted through sobs. "It isn't worth it."

"It isn't worth it to live for Elena?" Klaus asked her. "Or Bonnie? ...Or Stefan? …Or Matt? …Or your mother? …Or _me_?"

"No, it isn't!" Caroline spat out at him. "You guys can't just all spend years dealing with crazy me and trying to keep me alive! I'm not worth that! Even if I could somehow come out of this alright after everything, I'm not worth that! I'm doing this for you!"

"Don't you dare tell me that!" Klaus growled as his grip on her tightened even further. "You _are_ worth it! I'll stay down here for centuries with you if that's what it takes. No one is better off just having you dead instead of being able to help you fight to live. And don't you dare ever try again to claim that killing yourself would be for me! How am I supposed to live without you, especially while knowing that you died because I couldn't save you? Because I couldn't convince you that there was anything worth living for? I have all of the time in the world and I _want_ to spend all of it with you. Even if that means being locked in a cage with you for an eternity."

Caroline could hear the raw aggression in his tone as he stared down at her with tears threatening to fall from his eyes.

* * *

"Look at that," The hunter's voice filled Caroline's eardrums. "It's day one still and he's _already_ broken by _your_ curse. It's day one and you've _already_ tried to kill your best friend and yourself. You'll never make it through this, so why torture everyone else and yourself for any longer?"

* * *

Klaus noticed Caroline's head turning to the side to look at something or someone else that wasn't there and felt a rage flow through him.

"Caroline, look at me," He growled.

* * *

She continued to stare past him, over at the area where there was a little heap of dead bodies sitting. There was the hunter's body, Carter's body, the bodies of the two cops that she had killed, and most horrifyingly of all, her own disfigured and barely recognizable carcass.

* * *

"_Look_ _at me_!" Klaus snarled as loudly as he could, causing the sound to go echoing off of the walls.

* * *

Caroline faintly could hear that Klaus was saying something, but couldn't tear her gaze away from that of her own cold, dead eyes to look back over at him.

* * *

Klaus slid one of his arms so that the whole forearm was pushing her down at the collar bone and then took the other hand and then forcefully grabbed her chin and roughly pulled her face over, forcing her to look at him.

As she continued to stare on in horror, it was clear that she was still seeing whatever she had been before and not him.

Klaus didn't know what to do or how to bring Caroline back to reality, but all that he could think of was that he needed something to shock her back to reality and distract her from whatever image her mind was currently showing her instead.

That was how Klaus got the idea that caused him to lean down while still holding her there and give her a brief, but passion filled, kiss.

At some point during the kiss Caroline's eyes must have closed because they snapped back open to stare up at him when he pulled away.

She could see the look of sheer concern on Klaus's face and she knew that he had been telling the truth, that if she died it would destroy him.

"I need you to stay and keep me in line, remember?" Klaus asked quietly as all signs of aggression seemed to leave his voice.

Caroline nodded her head a little, which just caused more pain in the areas where Klaus was pressing down on her body to keep her in place.

"Okay," She responded weakly.

She still doubted that she would be able to make it through the curse; she still knew that the torture could only get worse. But she also knew that she at least had to try, for his sake, to survive it.

"Okay?" Klaus repeated in a surprised confusion.

"Yeah," Caroline assured him.

"So does that mean that if I give you this ring back that you won't throw it out the window again?" Damon asked from where he was now standing, leaning against the bars of the cage. "That you'll put it on?"

He had bolted outside, the instant that Caroline had thrown the ring, and gone searching for it. He had returned just moments later and had been silently watching the scene between Caroline and Klaus, knowing that there was nothing that he could add at that point that would help.

"I'll keep it on this time," Caroline promised, although really she knew that she was only promising to trying her hardest to make herself keep it on.

"Good," Damon said as he tossed the ring through the bars and towards Klaus.

Klaus caught it with one hand and then slid it onto Caroline's hand himself before he very cautiously loosened his grip on her slightly.

"I did that to you," Caroline commented quietly when she noticed the blood that still remained on Klaus's face from when she had scratched him thinking that he was Tyler. "I made you bleed?"

"I'm fine," Klaus told her with a reassuring smile. He had forgotten about the injury until Caroline had brought it back up. "It already healed a long time ago."

He wiped his face on the already blood-covered arm of his shirt to get rid of the blood and show that there were no scratches left on his face.

Caroline continued to frown as she tried to piece together what had and hadn't been real since she had woken up in the cell.

"He bit me," Caroline whispered to herself.

"Who did?" Klaus asked her.

"Tyler," Caroline replied. "He bit my neck."

Panic filled Caroline eyes as she reached up to grab at her neck without thinking.

"Tyler was never here," Klaus assured her. "There's no bite."

"I can feel it," Caroline argued as she continued to hold onto her neck.

"I promise you that there's nothing on your neck other than your hand," Klaus told her. "But if it will make you feel better-"

Klaus cut himself off as he brought one of his wrists to his mouth and bit through the flesh. Once he had drawn blood, he held his wrist out to Caroline to let her drink from him.

As Caroline drank, Klaus positioned them so that he was sitting cross-legged against the wall with Caroline sitting in his lap. He had one arm wrapped around her waist to hold her there and the other pressed to her lips as she drank.

* * *

Damon's phone had received a text message while he had been running to get Caroline her ring, but he had been too preoccupied to look at it up until that point.

* * *

**From Elena:**

_What's going on? Is Caroline okay? Where are you guys?_

* * *

Of course Damon didn't have any signal in the cellar, so he turned towards Klaus and asked, "I need to go call Elena, are you two okay for a minute?"

"Yeah, we should be," Klaus responded.

Damon nodded and then headed for the stairs.

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! I hope that you guys enjoyed the update and thanks for reading! :D**

**Another great big extra giant thanks goes out to all of the incredible reviewers of the last chapter: 1998baby, arielmermaid, XXXXKlarolineLoveXXXX, Carroline, layaboo, cRaZyGuRl093, oneindigorose, souzap, WeasleysGroupie, jessnicole, justine, DrawingMyHeartOut, If We Burn You Burn With Us123, Heidiionaanita, LitLover 101, and Athena**

* * *

**REVIEW ANSWERS:**

**WeasleysGroupie: I think that the main one is Mabekah, but there certainly some people who will say Matbekah instead.**

**justine: With Elena everyone knew about the curse though, here it's just Klaus, Damon, and Elena who know so far.**


	15. Chapter 15

When Damon returned a few minutes later, Caroline was done drinking from Klaus and Klaus had both of his arms wrapped around her waist.

Caroline watched Damon sit back down and then turned to look towards where she saw movement out of the corner of her eye.

"That's right, you keep living for me," Klaus, a second Klaus that was standing across the cell from her, told her. "Torture yourself for longer. I'm having a wonderful time watching you in pain… To be perfectly honest, I'm having a pretty difficult time not laughing at you."

Caroline silently told herself that it wasn't Klaus. That there couldn't be two of them and that the one holding her had to be the real one.

She sheepishly turned her head around to find that it was still Klaus who was holding her.

As she turned back towards the other smirking Klaus, she thought to herself that there was no way that Klaus would be able to fake the kind of emotion that he'd had after she had tried to kill herself. And if he really was that convincing then maybe he deserved to get away with completing turning her into his award winning kill.

Even if Klaus was trying to kill her and wanted to torture her, she should still try to resist. After all, she had to be important if he had wasted so much time just to torture her.

But Caroline didn't think that Klaus really was trying to kill her, even if he hadn't seen all of his emotion. Somehow spending all of that time getting to know her and pretending to care about her didn't seem like it would really be adequate torture for her. It just seemed like it would be torture for him to waste all of that time and have to put up with her while pretending to be on the good side and being accused of going soft.

Besides, he had told her things that she knew were the truth that she was sure that he would never admit to someone just to try and get them to trust him. He easily could have told her all lies, but he hadn't.

Caroline closed her eyes and told herself that there was no one there, that the only Klaus in the room was the one holding her, and that Klaus would never try to hurt her.

When she finally did open her eyes again, she found that the second Klaus had vanished.

"Are you okay, Love?" Klaus asked her, having noticed the way that she had been staring at something before clenching her eyes shut.

"Yeah, I'm alright," She told him, struggling to make her voice sound completely sure.

* * *

Caroline managed to go a few short minutes without having any hallucinations until Elena walked down the stairs and over to the edge of the cell.

"I'm so sorry, Elena," Caroline told her.

"It's alright," Elena told her. "Believe me, I know that the curse can make you hurt people that you would never want to."

Caroline didn't hear that though, she instead heard her friend say, "Sorry isn't good enough. But I came to watch you die in a cage, so that might be enough… Does anybody else have a sudden craving for popcorn?"

"You sound like Katherine," Caroline commented.

Elena began to frown in confusion at her friend as she said, "I guess that she isn't hearing what I'm saying then."

Once again, Caroline heard something else instead of what her friend had actually said. That time she had heard, "How much longer do we have to wait for her to just get it over with? Does she always have to be so overdramatic about everything?"

Caroline began to laugh a dry laugh before she replied with, "Sorry, you're going to have to wait forever if you want to watch me kill myself. And maybe I'm always so dramatic because you always have to be better at things. But that's okay because nothing motivates me like competition. And if you can live through the curse then I'm sure as hell going to survive it too."

Klaus wasn't sure whether to be happy or upset about what he had just heard. Sure, she had been hallucinating her friend telling her to kill herself. But she also was fighting against the suggestion instead of trying to get away from him so that she could make another attempt to take her own life. After thinking it over for a second, Klaus decided that it was definitely something to be happy about.

Elena seemed to come to the same conclusion as she began to smile.

"At least she's herself again," She commented as she looked at her blonde friend. "Maybe human Caroline, but that's Caroline."

That one Caroline heard properly.

"Did you do that on purpose to try and get that reaction?" Caroline asked in confusion.

"I don't know what you heard, but I said that it was fine. That I know that the curse can make you hurt people that you never would while in your right mind," Elena responded.

"So then I was hallucinating again?" Caroline asked, genuinely confused.

She turned to look at Damon and then back towards Klaus, wanting someone who wasn't Elena to answer her question since for all she knew Elena wasn't really there.

"You were hallucinating something," Klaus answered.

"So Elena's here and being nice?" Caroline asked. "Or is she not even here?"

"She's here," Damon answered. "I told her where we were when I went to go call her and she was worried about you. Now she's here and being nice."

"Okay," Caroline said, glad to have gotten that sorted out… Assuming that she wasn't hallucinating the responses of the others.

Even considering that hurt Caroline's head, so she decided to assume that what Damon and Klaus had said was the truth and that she hadn't been hallucinating what they had replied with.

Before anyone had the chance to say anything else, Caroline saw her father walk down the stairs and over to the door of the cell. He was holding a stake in one hand as he reached into his pocket with the other.

Her whole body went rigid as she shrunk back into Klaus.

Bill Forbes pulled a ring of keys out of his pocket and slowly began to flip through the keys, searching for the one that would open the cell door.

"It's just Bonnie, Sweetheart," Klaus whispered into Caroline's ear. "No one here wants to hurt you."

Caroline listened to him as she stared over at the cell, but all that she could see was Bill.

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! I hope that you all enjoyed the update and thanks for reading! Our poor Caroline shouldn't have to deal with the curse for much longer ;)**

**Another super giant extra special thanks goes out to all of the epic reviewers of the last chapter who helped me to reach over 200 reviews on this story so far: arielmermaid, LiaLovinLife, kieckykiecky, layaboo, justine, Iansarmy, helfabulousgirl, SittingOnTheEdgeOfTheUniverse, souzap, XXXXKlarolineForeverXXXX, April420, firstgreenisgold, DrawingMyHeartOut, HotHybridSex, jessnicole, WeasleysGroupie, and LitLover 101**


	16. Chapter 16

Caroline clenched her eyes shut and told herself over and over that when she opened them that it would just be Bonnie standing there.

When the sound of the jangling keys disappeared, Caroline quickly opened her eyes and looked up.

The reason that the sound of the keys had stopped was because Bill had already gotten the cell door unlocked and put the ring of keys back into his pocket. He slowly pushed the door open, causing it to emit a loud squealing noise.

Caroline quickly brought her hands up to cover her ears as the sound echoed through her brain, but it didn't quiet the noise at all.

Finally he had the door fully opened and the noise stopped as Caroline brought her hands back down.

"There's no one there," Klaus assured her.

Caroline repeated Klaus's words to herself over and over as she watched in horror while her father walked towards her. As he got closer, he raised the hand with the stake in it above her head.

She flinched back into Klaus who told her, "Whatever you see isn't real. It can't hurt you."

Caroline actually believed him for a second before her father brought the stake down and forced it deep into her chest.

She began to choke on unnecessary breaths as an unbelievable shooting pain spread from the stake and throughout her body.

"What's happening to her?" Bonnie demanded from where she stood just outside of the cell.

Caroline turned to look at her as she gradually began to catch her breath. If she could see Bonnie over there then…

Caroline turned to look over to the cell door to see that it still remained firmly shut. She looked in front of her to see no one. And then finally she looked down at her own chest to see that there was no stake or sign of a tear in her clothing… It hadn't been real, even if it had felt beyond realistic.

Her entire body relaxed against Klaus as she turned to look back over at Bonnie.

"Why didn't anybody tell me that she had the curse earlier?" The witch demanded.

"Sorry, I've been a little too busy dying," Caroline sneered.

"You're not dying," Bonnie told her firmly.

"I know," Caroline responded. "I'm just spending an indefinite amount of time being tortured while on the brink of death."

"No," Bonnie argued. "We're finding a potential hunter today."

"Oh right, because we never thought of that idea," Damon spoke up sarcastically from where he was sitting. "And how exactly do you plan on finding him?"

"He has a point," Elena commented when Bonnie glared over at the eldest Salvatore. "It was just luck that we had Jer last time."

"Maybe, but luck isn't going to have anything to do with it this time," Bonnie said confidently.

"What are you going to do?" Klaus finally spoke up.

"I'm going to use the dead hunter's body to do a locator spell on the new one," Bonnie responded.

"Will that even work?" Caroline asked her.

* * *

The hunter began to laugh in the corner of the cell loudly enough that Caroline had to glare over at him.

"Sorry, it's just that is the most doomed plan that I've ever heard of," The hunter said through his laughter.

* * *

"It's not exactly the blood of a relative, but there is a link," Bonnie replied. "I'm a lot stronger now. It should work. All that I need is some of the hunter's blood and then I can use a map and a couple of candles to figure out where the potential hunter is."

"That still doesn't tell you _who_ it is," Damon pointed out.

"I don't think that you understand how much power I have right now," Bonnie said angrily.

"I get that you want to help Caroline, we all do," Damon said as he stood up. "But do you seriously think that messing with some sketchy magic that lets you alter what spells do is a good way to do it? Do you not see how many ways this could go wrong?"

"Do it," Klaus told her.

"Are you crazy?" Damon asked, turning to look into the cell.

"I don't care what the consequences are, she's doing the spell," Klaus growled.

"We can figure out what's going on with my magic after," Bonnie argued. "But we're helping her first."

"Damon, let her do it," Elena insisted. "We have to at least try it."

Damon hesitated for a minute as he looked around the room. When he saw that no one else was on his side he let out a sigh and said, "Fine. If we're going to the body then let's go."

He turned and headed towards the stairs without as much as a glance back to make sure that she was following him.

* * *

"It's not going to work," The hunter told Caroline as Bonnie left with Damon. "All that this is doing is giving them all false hope. Can't you see that you're making them risk themselves to try and help you? You should be stopping them. And we both know the only way that you'll convince them."

"Bonnie can do it," Caroline argued quietly. "You just want me to stop her because you're afraid that it will work."

"I'm inside your head," The hunter pointed out. "If I don't want the curse to stop it's only because there's a part of you that doesn't want it to either. There's a part of you that thinks that you deserve this… Do you want to talk to her?"

Caroline watched as the hunter's body transformed into her own. Only it wasn't the way that she looked right then, she was dressed in the same outfit as she had been the night that she had killed Carter… And judging by the blood spread across her face it was after she had drained him.

"She hates me! Bonnie hates me," The other Caroline sobbed. "…And what about Matt?"

Caroline remembered that conversation all too well. It was the one that she'd had with Stefan while she was trying to wash Carter's blood off of her after Bonnie had found out what she was. Only she wasn't hearing Stefan's side or any of his reassuring, she was just hearing her own words and seeing the pain on her face after her first kill.

"I'm a m-m-murderer," Hallucination Caroline cried out. "I'm a monster!"

"Stop," Real Caroline begged.

The hallucination transformed back into the hunter, who tilted his head and smirked over at her.

"Why? You aren't having fun?" He asked. "I am… How about you watch _this_ instead."

Once again the hunter disappeared and was replaced with her as a new vampire… And there was Carter, standing a little to the side as his face bled.

"Hey, is everything okay?" Carter asked the sobbing hallucination.

"I'm so sorry," Caroline's double told him.

"What?" Carter asked before other Caroline rushed over and bit him.

Caroline watched in horror as other her drank. She wanted to close her eyes or look away, but she couldn't quite make herself do so.

"She hates me! Bonnie hates me!" Her own words echoed through her head as the feeding seemed to go on forever. "…And what about Matt? I'm a m-m-murderer. I'm a monster!"

Caroline began to sob as the other her finished drinking and dropped his body to the floor. Carter's body lay on the floor staring over at her accusingly as the other her vanished.

She was only able to look away when Klaus turned her head away for her. That was when she realized that he had been calling out her name.

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! I hope that this chapter wasn't too convincing with the two Carolines. I hope that you guys enjoyed the chapter and thanks for reading :D**

**Another extra special thanks goes out to the amazing reviewers of the last chapter: oneindigorose, arielmermaid, souzap, HotHybridSex, jessnicole, Rucky, bridgetzombie, Iansarmy, layaboo, vampiremovielove, justine, Heidiionaanita, LitLover 101, and lateVMlover**

* * *

**REVIEW ANSWERS:**

**Rucky: I'm not positive on how long until the end, but I feel like we're getting closeish.**


	17. Chapter 17

Matt and Rebekah showed up together a few minutes later.

"Is she okay?" Matt asked immediately.

"For now," Elena responded as Caroline sat with her head on Klaus's shoulder in a half asleep state. "She just calmed down."

"Is anybody doing anything to try and stop it?" Rebekah asked, feeling bad that Caroline had gotten the curse because she had gone in to save her.

Klaus was too preoccupied with holding Caroline and trying to keep her soothed to respond, so it was once again Elena who answered the question.

"Bonnie's doing a spell to find the next potential hunter."

Klaus gently ran a hand up and down Caroline's back as he brought his lips down to kiss her on the top of the head.

* * *

Bonnie returned to the cellar a little less than half an hour after she had left.

"Where's Damon?" Elena asked as her friend walked back in.

"I couldn't get a name, but I got a home address," Bonnie replied. "He went there and took Stefan with him."

* * *

"I wonder if your friends are going to take the time to try and find a ready-made vampire or if they're just going to turn some innocent victim just so that the hunter can kill them and you can survive," The hunter taunted.

A shudder went through Caroline's body as she refused to look over in the direction that the hunter's voice was coming from.

"I bet that they won't even know the name of the poor sap that they decide to turn," The hunter continued. "And I bet that whoever they choose is a lot more innocent than you are… I bet that they deserve to live a hell of a lot more than you do."

Caroline tried to ignore the hunter as her hand that had been resting limply on Klaus's shoulder clasped onto it tightly.

"But what's another body to add to your guilt?" The hunter asked casually. "I dare you to try to convince me that you aren't a monster. Should we rewatch the evidence to the contrary?"

"No!" Caroline responded urgently. "Not again."

"That's because you know that you're a monster, no matter how hard you try to pretend otherwise," The hunter continued. "You've said it before, back when you had the tiniest bit of humanity left. Why don't you just admit it?"

Caroline tried to focus on what Klaus was trying to tell her, but it was so hard to do. Klaus's voice sounded like a faint whisper while comparatively the hunter was as loud as if she was standing inches away from him while he was screaming.

"You asked for it," The hunter told her.

Caroline slowly turned to see what he was talking about, dreading whatever she was about to see.

"No," Caroline whispered with tears in her eyes as she saw herself and Carter once again.

"Hey, is everything okay?" Carter's voice asked.

As the second Caroline began to apologize, the real Caroline begged, "Just please stop. I don't want to see this."

* * *

"Has she been like this all day?" Rebekah asked.

"Most of it," Klaus responded, not taking his eyes off of the girl in his arms. "Sometimes worse than this… She threw her ring out the window and tried to burn herself to death earlier."

* * *

"Why not?" The hunter asked, appearing behind the scene. "I dare you to try to tell me that you deserve to live over some innocent human while you look at what you've done. I dare you to try to tell me that you aren't a monster."

"What do you want?" Caroline asked him as the other Caroline bit Carter.

How could she even still have any tears left? She'd been sobbing on and off all day and yet her body still had no difficulty producing even more tears.

* * *

"Are you still sure that you wanted to get a triple dose of this for us?" Matt asked Rebekah. He had been filled in on the situation and was surprised that she would be willing to do that.

"Yes," Rebekah replied in a definitive tone. "She only has it because she was trying to save me. It should have been me."

Klaus was getting more than a little frustrated with the side conversation that was going on while Caroline was clearly not okay.

* * *

"I want you to say it," The hunter responded with a smirk. "I'll make this-" He gestured towards where the other Caroline was draining Carter. "-stop as soon you admit what you are."

"Fine, I'm a monster," Caroline said as she rubbed at her eyes. "Just make it stop!"

The hallucinations slowly faded out of sight, giving Caroline the slightest sense of relief. She turned to look back at Klaus, finally able to hear him again.

"You are not a monster," Klaus told her as he stared down into her eyes. "This is all going to be over soon, okay? Damon and Stefan are taking care of it."

* * *

"Do you know how it could be over sooner?" Carter's voice came from behind her.

* * *

As Caroline tried to turn to look at him, Klaus caught her chin in his hand and stopped her.

"There's no one over there," He told her. "No one else is trying to talk to you, it's just me."

"Okay," Caroline agreed quietly.

"Good," Klaus said as she rested her head on his chest, facing towards the cell door and the others.

Caroline smiled a little to herself in amusement as she commented, "I guess I wasn't that far off when I said that the day that I'd date Klaus would be the day that I'd die."

No one else seemed amused by her joke as they all frowned in response.

"Tough crowd," Caroline said to herself. "I thought that I might at least get a pity smile."

After an uncomfortably long period of silence she spoke up once again to comment, "I feel like I'm in a zoo exhibit… Except for the people staring at the animals usually look happier than you guys."

"This isn't funny, Care," Bonnie told her as everyone remained unimpressed with her jokes.

"Right," Caroline responded in a sarcastic tone. "Because I'm just having a laugh riot over here… This whole thing is just so fun for me."

"That's not what I meant," Bonnie defended.

"I was just trying to lighten the mood," Caroline said unhappily. "Instead of just sitting around waiting for the next hallucination."

* * *

"I thought your jokes were pretty good," Carter told her, showing up right on cue. "Because you still are going to die today. And that's exactly what you are, the animal that nobody wants to see."

* * *

"Look, I'm sorry. And no offence, but your jokes aren't exactly lightening the mood," Bonnie told her.

"Leave her alone," Klaus spoke up.

Caroline focussed on his voice as she refused to look in the direction that Carter had spoken from.

* * *

"If you want to do something instead of just sitting around and waiting for the next hallucination then how about you just end this and make sure that there isn't another one?" Carter asked, causing Caroline to feel an overwhelming urge to turn and look at him. "If you kill yourself then you won't hurt anyone else. And you won't have to deal with any more hallucinations."

She looked up at Klaus, who had just turned to look back at her after talking to Bonnie.

"Keep talking," Caroline told him.

"About what?" He asked her.

"Anything," She responded.

* * *

"I'm talking to you!" Carter shouted from behind her. "At least have the decency to look at me while I talk to you!"

* * *

Caroline desperately resisted the urge to turn and look as Klaus began to speak again.

"You do realize that saying that automatically makes it so that I can't think of anything, right?" He asked her.

"Just keep talking," Caroline begged. "About anything. I don't care if you want to talk about laundry detergent for forty minutes, just don't stop talking."

"If that's what you want," Klaus told her with a slight smile. "I have a feeling that everybody else here is going to get very sick of the sound of my voice very quickly, but to be perfectly honest I couldn't care less-"

* * *

"I thought that I told you to look at me!" Carter's voice came rumbling from behind her.

* * *

"This might come as a surprise to you, but I actually don't think that I have forty minutes worth of things to say about laundry detergent," Klaus continued. "Probably not even four minutes worth actually… Elijah probably would. He practically has a magic power for getting blood out of suits and making them look cleaner than they were when he bought them-"

* * *

"I'm a monster!" Caroline's own voice came sobbing from behind her. "Bonnie hates me!"

* * *

Caroline forced herself to ignore it as she focussed back on Klaus.

"I bet that he could make Martha Stewart look like a slob if he wanted to," Klaus continued.

Caroline began to laugh a little.

"What?" Klaus asked her with a smile.

"I'm just imagining him showing up on her and upstaging her and then taking over," Caroline responded. "And he's correcting her while she just stands there giving him a death glare."

"But taking over her show would probably be too rude for Elijah," Klaus commented with a grin. "Unless she had done something to really make him mad, he'd probably just go secretly give her advice or even just compel her into using a different approach… Maybe Elijah compelled Martha Stewart into being Martha Stewart…"

"You should ask him sometime," Caroline agreed.

"So is it working?" Klaus asked her.

"Is what working?" Caroline asked, furrowing her brow a little.

"The whole making me talk non-stop to try and distract yourself thing," He responded casually.

Caroline suddenly realized that she had managed to completely drown the hallucinations out by focussing on Klaus's voice for long enough. She had even gotten distracted enough that she had very briefly forgotten that was what she was trying to do.

Instead of responding with words, Caroline responded by kissing him.

"I take that as a yes," Klaus said with a smile when she pulled away.

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! I hope that you guys enjoyed the update and thanks for reading. :)**

**Another extra special thanks goes out to all of the incredible reviewers of the last chapter: jessnicole, lateVMlover, vampirelovver, LitLover 101, justine, layaboo, arielmermaid, and Merlik**


	18. Chapter 18

Caroline suffered through hallucinations for a couple of hours more. Sometimes she would be able to focus on Klaus and drown them out, but sometimes she couldn't get them to stop and just had to endure them until they passed.

She was emotionally and physically exhausted as she sat cuddled into her boyfriend's arms during a brief break from the delusions.

"Are you alright?" Klaus asked her quietly.

"Not really," Caroline admitted. "I just want it to be over already."

* * *

"How many times do you have to be told that there's an easy way to make it end?" The hunter asked her. "What makes you think that your friends even found the potential hunter? Did you ever stop to consider that this is their way of torturing you? Giving you false hope that they'll save you so that it will be that much worse when they don't?"

Caroline tried to ignore the hunter as she wrapped her arms around Klaus's neck.

"Your automatic instinct is to kill, isn't it?" The hunter demanded. "You didn't even hesitate when you saw me. You just murdered me without thinking. You didn't even realize what you were doing until I was already lying on the ground."

She thought to herself that it had been an automatic instinct self-defence as she refused to look towards him.

"Admit it, your instinct is to kill and you have to fight it every single day," The hunter continued as his voice turned into a raging shout. "And you won't always be able to resist that instinct. You're a-"

Caroline's brow furrowed in confusion when his voice cut out mid-sentence. She raised her head from Klaus's chest and turned around to see that there was no one standing there.

"What is it, Care?" Bonnie asked her.

"He just stopped and disappeared halfway through his sentence," Caroline explained in a confused tone. "He just said 'You're a' and then stopped. I mean I'm assuming that he was going to finish it with 'monster' or 'murderer' or something like that, but it just doesn't have the same impact this way."

"Maybe that means that it's over," Matt suggested in a hopeful tone.

Caroline didn't let herself believe that. If she believed it then she was sure that it would end up just being some cruel trick by the hunter in order to torture her a little more.

"I'll go call Damon and check," Elena said as she stood up from where she had been sitting.

Caroline was doubtful… If it was really over, wouldn't she know for sure? Wouldn't things somehow feel different?

Klaus remained unnervingly silent as they waited for Elena to return. It was like he was afraid to comfort her by saying that it was over in case it wasn't, but he also didn't want to admit that it might not be and concern her.

* * *

Elena came running back down the stairs a few seemingly long minutes later with a big smile plastered across her face.

"They did it," Elena said happily when she reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Great, that means that we can let her out of that cage now," Rebekah suggested.

"Except for the fact that Damon has the key," Klaus replied.

Although he didn't have to hold onto Caroline to prevent her from hurting herself for any longer, Klaus still did since he was enjoying holding her in his arms… Especially now that he knew that she no longer had the curse.

"It doesn't matter," Caroline said quietly. "I'll stay in here until he gets back."

"You don't seem as excited as I was expecting," Bonnie commented.

"Well obviously I'm glad that there isn't going to be any more hallucinations," The blonde replied. "But that doesn't undo all of the ones that already happened or change what they said."

"So does that mean that you..?" Matt trailed off before he could finish his question.

"Want to kill myself?" Caroline finished for him. "No. But I don't exactly feel like frolicking through flowers either."

"Well then I guess that I'll have to replan what we're going to do tomorrow," Klaus joked quietly.

"I don't know, now I kind of want to watch you frolicking through the flowers," She responded with a smirk.

* * *

Stefan and Damon arrived at the Lockwood cellar approximately half an hour later.

Caroline and Klaus stood up on stiff legs as Damon unlocked the door.

Caroline hugged everyone for helping her, but hesitated in front of Damon when he was the only one left. She slapped him across the face, hard, before pulling him in for a big hug.

Damon seemed shocked for a second before hugging her back.

* * *

Caroline went back to Elena's house and borrowed some clothes so that she could change out of her bloodstained ones before she went home.

* * *

Klaus entered his kitchen to go dispose of the body and was surprised to find that it was gone and the floor was spotless.

"Care to explain why you were keeping a rotting corpse in your kitchen, Niklaus?" Elijah asked as he walked into the room. "Or why you're covered in dried blood?"

"He was a hunter that Caroline killed," Klaus replied unhappily. "I was a little too preoccupied to worry about the mess."

"Oh," Elijah said with a frown. "So does that mean that she's-"

"Dead?" Klaus finished for him. "No, Bonnie managed to find a potential hunter by using some spell. Caroline's at home right now."

"Is she doing okay?" Elijah asked in a concerned tone.

"I don't know," Klaus responded. "She doesn't want to die or anything, but she's still thinking about the hallucinations and what they said… I'm going to go over there after I shower and change."

"That's probably a good idea," Elijah agreed.

* * *

When Caroline walked into her house, she headed straight for her mom and pulled her in for a giant hug.

"Is everything alright?" Liz asked as she hugged her daughter back.

"Yeah, I've just had a really long day," Caroline responded into her mother's shoulder.

She hugged her shocked mother for several long seconds before she finally pulled away.

"I'm just going to go take a shower and go to bed early," Caroline said as she turned to leave the room.

"Okay," Liz told her.

* * *

Caroline took a long shower, wanting to make sure that she got all of the dried blood off of her.

She had just finished her shower and gotten dressed in a tank top and a pair of pajama shorts when Klaus came climbing in through her window.

Caroline smiled at the sight of him.

"Are you feeling okay?" Klaus asked her in a concerned tone.

"A bit better," She responded. "I'm glad that you came. I didn't really want to be alone."

"I thought that you might not," He replied as he walked over to her and stroked her cheek.

He gave her a gentle kiss before wrapping his arms around her.

"I'm so tired," Caroline told him as she leaned her head against his shoulder.

"Well then you should get some sleep," Klaus said as he carried her to her bed.

She snuggled into him as she attempted to fall asleep. Somehow she was still having a difficult time falling asleep despite how tired she was. That probably had something to do with the fact that every time that she closed her eyes she could see herself drinking from Carter.

"…When you were hallucinating today, you said something," Klaus told her.

"I said a lot of things," She responded. "You'd have to be a little more specific."

"You were defending me and you said that you're in love with me," He elaborated. "…Are you?"

"Of course I am," Caroline said before kissing him. "I love you."

"I love you too," Klaus responded with a smile.

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! So I'm not sure, but I think that the next chapter might be the last one. If not it will certainly be soon... I hope that you guys liked the chapter and thanks for reading! :)**

**Another extra special thanks goes out to all of the fantastic reviewers of the last chapter: layaboo, lateVMlover, LitLover 101, helfabulousgirl, XXXXKlarolineLoveXXXX, justine, jhemlovesdamon, DrawingMyHeartOut, starlightsps, arielmermaid, souzap, HotHybridSex, WeasleysGroupie, April420, thekolbydiaries, and Heidiionaanita**

* * *

**REVIEW ANSWERS:**

**LitLover 101: You're right, I definitely do have to see that movie. Thanks for the suggestion :)**

**justine: He won't be helping her with the hallucinations since they're gone now, but Elijah is here and he might just be helping with a little something ;)**

**April420: Unless the hallucinations decided to change his face mid-makeout session :P**


	19. Chapter 19

Caroline woke up the next day in the early morning. She'd had horrible nightmares the night before and was glad when she awoke to find Klaus lying next to her. She debated waking up as her mind was still filled with irrational fear from her dreams, but she didn't want to wake him up with her problems after he had spent the whole previous day helping her through her hallucinations.

Caroline cuddled her body up closer to his, already feeling more protected even if he was asleep.

She laid there calming herself down for a few minutes, telling herself that it had just been a dream. After a long half hour she finally managed to fall back asleep again.

* * *

Klaus woke up to discover that Caroline was shaking in her sleep as she let out a quiet whimper.

He gently placed a hand on her arm, only to have her flinch away in her sleep.

Klaus quickly pulled his hand back as he said, "Caroline, sweetheart. It's only me."

She continued to shake in her sleep as a pained moan escaped from her lips. Klaus grabbed onto her arm again, frowning as she flinched at the contact, and shook her awake.

"It's just a dream," He assured her.

Caroline's eyes suddenly opened wide and he could see the sheer terror in them as she sprung into a seated position.

"It's alright, Love," Klaus told her in a concerned tone. "It was just a dream, it wasn't real."

As Caroline realized that she was safe in her bed with Klaus, she calmed down a little and she wrapped her arms tight around his neck.

"I'm not going to let anything happen to you," He promised her as he wrapped his arms around her waist. "You'll always be safe with me."

"I know," Caroline said into his chest. "It was just a bad dream, that's all."

"That's right," He told her as he gently stroked her back to help soothe her.

"I love you, Klaus," She whispered.

"I love you too," Klaus replied as he continued to hold her.

Caroline remained still for a few minutes as she just enjoyed the feeling of safety and warmth in his arms. When she finally did move it was just to press her lips against his.

One kiss quickly turned a full blown make-out session and things soon escalated further from there.

* * *

That afternoon Klaus and Caroline entered his home with linked hands.

She silently eyed the doorway to the kitchen uncomfortably as they walked into the living room.

"The body's gone, don't worry," Klaus comforted her when he noticed the way that she was staring over there. "And Elijah's the one who cleaned it up, so it's impossible to tell that there was anything there."

Caroline nodded although a feeling of dread still filled her as she looked over there. In some ways she didn't want to go anywhere near the kitchen and in some ways she desperately needed to see that the body was really gone.

"I want to see," She told him as she began to lead him towards the doorway by his hand.

Caroline wasn't quite sure what exactly she had been expecting to find, but somehow she was still shocked to find the kitchen completely clean. There wasn't even the slightest trace of evidence to suggest that just the day before a man had been murdered in that very room.

"Are you alright?" Klaus asked her gently.

"Yeah," She replied with a weak nod as she stared down at the floor. "I just need a second by myself, okay?"

"Sure, Love," Klaus agreed.

He kissed her on the top of the head before reluctantly leaving the room.

Once he was out of the room, she collapsed to the ground, leaning her back against the side of the counter. She hadn't wanted him to see her like that since she didn't want to have to explain… Since she didn't have any idea how to even begin to attempt to explain it.

Although Caroline didn't want to have to see the blood and gore and be reminded of what she had done the morning before, she was disturbed by how easily it had become like nothing had ever happened. She wasn't entirely sure that she wanted thing to be that easy… She didn't want to live in a world where you could take a human life, even if it was in self-defence, and have no one even care… And have the whole thing disappear as if she had just spilled a carton of milk.

She felt herself on the brink of tears as she stared down at the spotless tile.

"Caroline," A voice said gently.

She whipped her head up in surprise. She hadn't heard Elijah enter the room.

"Are you-" He began to ask.

"Please don't ask me if I'm okay," Caroline interrupted. "You can't imagine how many times I've been asked that in the past day."

"That just means that people care enough to be concerned about you," Elijah pointed out.

"They're asking because they want me to say that I'm fine," She replied. "So that they don't have to feel bad for me and they can go on as normal without feeling guilty."

"What if I said that I wanted the honest answer?" Elijah asked her.

Caroline hesitated for a moment as she looked up into his concerned gaze.

"Honestly, I'm not doing great," She told him. "People assume that just because the hallucinations end that the curse does too, but it doesn't."

"What do you mean?" Elijah asked her as he sat down across from her.

Caroline could tell from his tone that he was actually interested in what she had to say and wasn't just trying to humour her.

"I'm not having any new hallucinations, but that doesn't make the old ones just go away." She explained. "It doesn't get rid of all the guilt and all of the damage that was done… And I don't want to be broken."

"What do you have to be guilty about?" Elijah asked her in confusion.

She was amazed to see that the man sitting across from her honestly couldn't understand what she would have to feel guilty about. And that was Elijah, the most moral of the originals. That was the man who had cleaned up the body for her.

"I'm a killer," Caroline responded quietly. "Why wouldn't I feel guilty about that?"

"From what my siblings have told me, you managed to scare two hunters out of town without spilling any blood," Elijah pointed out. "And you only killed the third in order to save your own life. There's nothing wrong with that."

"Not just the hunter though," Caroline argued. "And I killed him to stop him from killing a monster. There is something wrong with that."

"You are not a monster," Elijah told her. "Trust me; I've seen what a real monster looks like. And as terrible as it might be, every vampire ends up killing at least once before they manage to learn to control themselves. You have remarkable self-control, possibly the best that I've ever seen."

Caroline rolled her eyes at that, "That's not true."

"Yes, it is," Elijah said firmly as he looked straight into her eyes. "It takes most vampires years to get anywhere near the kind of control that you have. It's an impeccable talent that you possess."

She smiled sheepishly as she asked, "Really?"

"I promise you that it's beyond rare to be able to show so much restraint," Elijah told her.

It was no secret that Elijah was a man of honor and if he was promising her that something was true then that must mean something, especially when he was making so much sense with his words.

"Thanks," Caroline told him with a smile.

"It was my pleasure," Elijah told her. "You needed to hear it."

As Caroline got up, she felt significantly better about everything. She found it strange that sometimes the best help could come from the least expected places.

If someone had told her a year before that Klaus and Damon would be her heroes and that Elijah would be the one comforting her, she would have laughed in their faces.

* * *

"How are you feeling?" Klaus asked her when she entered the living room.

"A lot better about things than I have in days," Caroline responded honestly.

"Really?" He asked seeming a little surprised, but definitely happy.

"Yeah," Caroline told him. "I had a conversation about it with Elijah and he made a lot of sense."

"I'm glad," Klaus told her. "Because you have nothing to feel bad about."

Caroline smiled at him as she actually began to believe those words.

"I should have admitted that I had feelings for you a long time ago," She told him. "I've been missing out."

"We have an eternity to make up for lost time," Klaus told her with a smile before he leaned down to kiss her on the forehead

"An eternity together sounds nice," She replied before pulling him in for a real kiss.

For the first time since killing the hunter, Caroline really felt like everything was going to be alright.

_The End_

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**A/N: Please read and review! I hope that you guys liked the ending and enjoyed the story. Thanks so much to everyone who has been reading this and for all of the support from all of the reviewers! :)**

******And if anyone wants me to write a drabble for them, I have a new account on tumblr where I write requests. The url is tvddrabbles and then you just have to add .tumblr and .com**

******Another great big extra special thanks goes out to all of the absolutely incredible reviewers of the last chapter: layaboo, lateVMlover, thekolbydiaries, WeasleysGroupie, Heidiionaanita, jessnicole, Merilk, DrawingMyHeartOut, bookeater123, justine, XXXXKlarolineLoveXXXX, helfabulousgirl, LitLover 101, imaddictedtocarrots, MyloveforKlaroline, and SarahCullen4**

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**REVIEW ANSWERS:**

**bookeater123: Haha, sometimes I'm a really fast updater and sometimes I'm painfully slow. It helps that it's summer break right now... I don't think that I'll be writing another truth or dare story although I'm kind of debatingish writing a sequel to the other one that's themed around the game Never Have I Ever...**

**XXXXKlarolineLoveXXXX: Thanks for that amazing compliment :D**

**helfabulousgirl: Sorry, we've reached the end...**


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